


I ain’t scared of the fall (I’ve hit the ground before)

by Symbolic



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Art School, Enjolras and Montparnasse are non-identical twins, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 22:00:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2204589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Symbolic/pseuds/Symbolic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire is just about to usher him out, because the room is starting to smell like Enjolras, and he shouldn’t be reacting so viscerally to that fact, he barely knows this boy, still doesn’t even know if he’s gay, when his eye falls on his open sketchbook. The preliminary sketches for Grantaire’s collection are still there, splashed across the page, and Grantaire suddenly has an idea. “If you really – if you really want to make it up to me, there is something you can do.” </p>
<p>Enjolras looks like Grantaire’s offered him a lifeline – he obviously doesn’t like being wrong, obviously is never in the wrong, doesn’t know how to behave. “What is it?” he asks slightly breathlessly. </p>
<p>“I want you to model for my collection,” Grantaire says. </p>
<p> <i>(OR: Grantaire and Montparnasse are studying menswear at art school, Enjolras is the non-identical twin Montparnasse never mentioned, and everything in Grantaire's life goes to shit pretty quickly.) </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'The Fall' by The Weeknd 
> 
> I thought - if Montparnasse and Enjolras are identical opposites in the brick, then why shouldn't they be twins? It all sparked from there.

 “I need you to come round tonight.”

Grantaire is startled out of his daydream by the voice in his ear. He turns to the boy who has draped himself all over Grantaire’s work station, and gives him a reproachful look.

“For fuck’s sake, Montparnasse, can’t you see I was in my creative zone?”

Montparnasse smiles, showing a row of perfect white teeth.

“R, you haven’t got a creative zone. All you’ve done since we got the brief last week was fiddle around with some black crepe and furtively read the Mail Online when you think no-one is looking.”

He’s right, unfortunately. In the time since their tutor gave them their assignment for this term – create an original evening-wear collection whilst collaborating with another student from one of the design departments – Grantaire has had absolutely zero inspiration. He isn’t an evening-wear kind-of guy, has never even had an opportunity to wear black tie himself in his entire life. Montparnasse, being the posh git that he is, is absolutely over the moon. During their lunch breaks and furtive trips outside for a fag, Grantaire has caught phrases like ‘the new feminine’ and ‘space-age Victoriana’ before choosing to tune out.

“I thought we were going to that bar with Ep for drinks?”

“We were. But plans have changed. I am absolutely stone-cold broke until my allowance kicks in next Wednesday, and anyway, you promised to help me rehash one of the denim jackets in my wardrobe.”

Resistance is futile, Grantaire decides. He too is pretty broke, his pitiful student loan trickling away faster than water in this vastly expensive city, and plus – Montparnasse’s house is nice. Whilst Grantaire, moving from a town in Essex built almost entirely out of grey pebble-dash, is living in a tiny box-room in the university’s student halls, Montparnasse decided to stay at home with his parents in their massive Chelsea mansion. What with his dad always away in Hong Kong working on the stock markets, and his mum taking constant trips to Paris and New York for her newspaper, the house is pretty much empty all the time anyway.

“Fine, I’ll come. But once I’ve done your denim jacket-” and Grantaire knows, he _knows_ it will take ages to tailor it, because Montparnasse is obsessive about lines and tucks, and refuses to even put a holding-stitch in until he’s convinced it’s in the perfect place, “- you have to promise that we can get on the roof and finish the W that’s left over from last week. As compensation for my time and skill.”

“It’s a done deal, mon amigo.” Montparnasse jumps down from the worktop with all the lithe grace of a cat. “Now go back to doing… whatever it was you were doing, and I’ll meet you in the entrance hall at about five.”

Grantaire groans in assent, and puts his head back down onto his arms. If he tries really hard now, he can get in a good hour-and-a-half of disconsolate napping before the studio closes for the day.

 

 

Grantaire lingers outside the front door for a good ten minutes after Montparnasse has gone in. The weather is truly cold now, December frost kicking in, and Grantaire likes it. He reaches into the pockets of his coat – tailored grey cashmere, picked up in a charity shop for twelve quid the weekend after he moved up to London, a winged collar clearly influenced by Burberry A/W ’12 – and pulls out a cigarette. The smoke is indistinguishable from the condensation unfurling from his mouth every time he breathes out, but the nicotine buzz steadies him like always. When he can’t actually feel his feet anymore, he turns the brass doorknob on the huge, navy door, and enters the house.

The heat inside is like a furnace in comparison to the chilly air outside. Montparnasse’s parents are rich enough to be able to afford to keep the central heating on 24/7. At home, Grantaire’s dad would watch the thermostat like a hawk. Grantaire is used to putting on another jumper, rather than being able to relax in a reasonable temperature come winter. Now, he loosens his scarf and shrugs off his coat, leaving it hanging on the bottom of the bannister. Wandering into the kitchen, he wonders if there is anything left in the massive fridge for him to steal. Inside the fridge is a bowl of left-over truffle ravioli, and he filches that, before going to one of the drawers to grab a spoon.

“Who are you?”

The voice is completely unexpected, unfamiliar, and makes him jump about a mile. He drops the bowl, ravioli and all, and it smashes on the floor with what feels to Grantaire like a deafening sound. He winces, because all of the crockery that Montparnasse’s family uses is antique, and that bowl probably cost more than Grantaire’s entire IKEA set put together.

The owner of the voice is sitting in a corner of the kitchen on the sofa against the wall, a laptop balanced on one knee. Grantaire has never seen that face before. He is certain of that one fact, because if he had seen it, then he would most certainly remember it. The face is ostensibly male, but – like Montparnasse – not handsome. Instead, the face has an androgynous beauty, cheekbones, full lips, long eyelashes. Strong arching eyebrows and messy blonde hair that has been pulled up into a top knot. It is without a doubt the kind of face that Grantaire would very much like to see shouting his name as it came undone. None of this is answering the Face’s question, though.

“I’m Grantaire,” he replies shortly, because he’s embarrassed, but seeing that this means next-to-nothing to the face, he adds, “I’m Montparnasse’s friend.”

This seems to explain things to the Face, who unfolds his body from the blanket in which it has been curled, and walks over to Grantaire. Something sparks in Grantaire’s mind, because the Face has the same kind of easy grace and elegance that imbues Montparnasse’s every movement.

“Don’t you think you should tidy that up?” the Face asks, now leaning casually against the counter top. Grantaire rolls his eyes, but crouches down to pick up the pieces of broken crockery all the same. What a crying waste of ravioli.

It is at this moment that Montparnasse decides to enter the room, quickly accompanied by Éponine.  He spots Grantaire crouched on the floor, but makes no noise of surprise when he sees the Face.

“Oh,” Montparnasse says, “I see you’ve met my twin, Enjolras.”

Grantaire yelps, and the fragment of bowl that he is holding slips, and cuts right across his hand.

 

Five minutes later, and Grantaire is sitting at the kitchen table clutching a tea towel to his bloody hand. The rest of the mess on the floor is being cleaned up by Éponine, who is muttering away under her breath. Montparnasse – who has never shown any interest or inclination in getting his hands dirty – is leaning against the side, unashamedly appreciating Éponine’s bent over posterior. Enjolras, as the Face is revealed to be called, is inspecting Grantaire.

“I think you should probably get a stitch for that,” he says, indicating with a jerk of his head the tea towel, through which a stain is growing more and more evident.

Grantaire snorts with laughter. “A and E on a Friday night in London? You must be mad. Nah, it’ll stop bleeding in a bit.” He turns to where Montparnasse is standing with a deferential look. “I’m afraid there’s little chance of me being able to work a sewing machine right now though, M.”

Montparnasse’s haughty face looks resigned. “I’d realised. Plus I don’t want you getting blood all over that jacket, it cost me an absolute bomb.”

Enjolras looks disapproving. “If it cost so much, why buy it? You know full well that there are way better things you could be doing with the money.” Even when looking disapproving, Grantaire thinks, Enjolras is still absolutely beautiful. Maybe even more so. His wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command tell that the sculptor well those passions read, after all.

“My dear brother,” Montparnasse is addressing Grantaire now, “has no appreciation for the finer things in life. What we do is absolutely lost on him. He’s too busy saving the world with all his geeky friends down at Oxford.”

Enjolras’ has a resigned expression on his face, like he’s had this argument a hundred times before, with the same outcome. “I appreciate what you do… I appreciate you have talent, I just can’t see that it contributes anything to anyone’s life.”

Grantaire doesn’t want to get involved in the tensions that clearly exist between the two brothers, but he can’t help but have his interest piqued by this anomaly. Montparnasse is, to all extents and purposes, Grantaire’s best friend. They met in their very first week of Central St Martins, with Montparnasse enviously staking out Grantaire’s skills with knitwear, and Grantaire requisitioning Montparnasse’s understanding of technical sketches for his own work. Since then, the two of them had spent most of their time together, with Éponine, the feisty scholarship girl from Peckham who worked wonders in the silversmithing workshop, joining them about three weeks in. Grantaire has been to Montparnasse’s house countless times, met his parents, stayed over for dinner and spliffs and drinks and baths, but not once in the last months has he heard about this – this _Enjolras._ He knew, after all, that Montparnasse had a brother – the coach house at the other end of the garden was clearly shared by two people, and Montparnasse’s parents occasionally mentioned him – but the idea of a twin, even a non-identical one, is beyond him.

“The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely,” Grantaire tells the man sitting opposite him with mock-seriousness, “All art is quite useless.”

Enjolras still has a wrinkle between his perfect eyebrows, as his attention is drawn back to Grantaire. He mulls over his words for a few moments, before looking up defiantly. “Well, you’re not making something useless, are you? You make clothes. So they do have a use, ergo they can’t be art. But even though they have a use, they still don’t contribute anything to society – it’s not like you design cheap jackets for the homeless or something. You just make beautiful pieces of clothing that can only be afforded by the super-rich, but which – according to Oscar Wilde’s definition – aren’t pieces of art. Which I would say is just, well, hypocritical really.”

Despite himself, Grantaire is quite impressed. “I only quoted Wilde, I didn’t say I agreed with him. I actually think his writing is sanctimonious and flimsy.”

“But you haven’t actually confronted my–” Enjolras starts, the light of debate clearly ignited in his eyes, but before he can finish he gets interrupted by the door opening and shutting.

“Enjolras, we’re back! Blimey it’s cold outside, I mean, you’d expect it to be warmer here seeing as we’re actually in a city but…” the voice continues all the way down the hall. Grantaire and Montparnasse exchange looks – it is clear that whoever these newcomers are, Montparnasse doesn’t know them either. The kitchen door opens, and two men, roughly in their early twenties, bound into the room with the sort of energy that makes Grantaire want to curl up into a ball and go back to sleep.

The two men briefly stop dead at the strange sight. Éponine, whose words are rare but which are all the more valuable for that, is silently sitting on one of the stools that line the expensive granite work top, and Montparnasse is still elegantly stretched out beside her. The tea towel Grantaire is clutching is now absolutely sopping with blood, the occasional ‘plink’ of a drop hitting the Cath Kidston table cloth reverberating throughout the room. Enjolras is in one chair, a leg pulled up to his chin and his longsleeved grey t-shirt slipping off one freckled shoulder. Grantaire, for all his sins, is transfixed by that shoulder.

The two men recover first. One, with impressively tanned skin given the weather, and a warm smile, reaches out his hand to Montparnasse. “You must be Enjolras’ twin. You might be surprised to hear it, but he talks about you a lot. I’m Courfeyrac, and this reprobate–” he gestures at the other man by his side, tall and very dark with a solemn face, “–is Combeferre. We’re at the same college as Enjolras.”

Montparnasse takes the hand that is offered to him, and the weird tension that has been zipping round the room ever since – well, ever since Grantaire came in, really – is dispersed. Courfeyrac throws himself down onto the sofa with some more of that boundless enthusiasm, whilst Combeferre crosses to Enjolras, putting one steadying hand on his shoulder and giving him a serious look, before sitting down as well.

Éponine swings down from her vantage point, and turns to Montparnasse. “Look, I came because I was promised an evening with some pints and a spliff or two. Is that going to be forthcoming at any point in the future?”

Montparnasse gives her a look – a look that Grantaire can sense is rather longing and sweet, but under those eyebrows, seems impenetrable – and nods. “Yeah, I’ve got a tonne of stuff left over in my room. R, can you head down to Tesco’s and grab some beer?”

Grantaire nods. He should probably buy a bandage while he’s at it.

“I’ve got some long rizla and some baccy, if you want,” Courfeyrac interjects, and for a brief moment Montparnasse looks annoyed. He surveys Courfeyrac and Combeferre, and then seems to make a decision. “Yeah, cool, that would be good. Enj and I have the rooms down the garden.” Montparnasse turns to go, and everyone stands up.

Grantaire is in the hall putting on his coat when someone comes out of the kitchen behind him. He turns, and sees that it is Enjolras, who shrugs. “I want some chocolate, do you mind if I come with you?”

Grantaire doesn’t mind at all.

 

The first five minutes of the walk to Tescos is quiet. Grantaire smokes another cigarette, and pulls his tartan scarf closer around his neck to stave off the wind. Enjolras seems content to stay silent. When they reach the shop, the pair split – Grantaire goes to buy whiskey, beer and some more cigarettes. The queue for the till is long, and by the time he’s got his receipt, he can’t see the other man anywhere. He steps outside and begins the journey back to the house, unable to feign a surprise when Enjolras appears as if by magic at his elbow. He gives an enquiring look to his partner.

“You didn’t think I’d wait?” asks Enjolras, quietly amused.

The silence broken, Grantaire can’t help but ask questions, intrigued about this twin that he’s never met before, barely even heard of. Enjolras perks up in response to his questions, his answers easy and unstilted and without the slight hostility that had been simmering under the surface back at the house. Grantaire discovers that he is the younger by one minute. That he and Montparnasse started out looking very similar at birth – both with shocks of white blonde hair – but that as they grew older, and their different temperaments started to show, Montparnasse’s hair grew darker and darker. That they had gone to the same schools, but always had different friends.

“So what exactly are you doing at uni?” Grantaire finally asks, as they cross the road at the zebra crossing. Enjolras takes a bite out of his crunchie, chewing thoughtfully on the toothrotting honeycomb before replying.

“I do a subject called PPE – politics, philosophy and economics. It’s kind of the inroad to, well to politics. A lot of the most famous politicians studied it at Oxford… not that any of them were any good, really.”

After a brief pause (because Grantaire does not want to ask about Enjolras’ political views, not right now, not when they’re getting alone just fine), Enjolras turns and looks at Grantaire. “So what are you doing in London?”

Grantaire gives him a wry smile, and swings the plastic carrier bag along jauntily. “Well there wasn’t much demand for skinny queer boys with an interest in fine knits and sewing at home. I was the only boy to take textiles in my year – it was mostly filled with girls looking for a doss subject. Anyway, my art teacher took me aside one day and told me I should visit London and have a look round some of the big art colleges, to try, you know, fashion or menswear, and I did, and yeah… the rest is history really.”

“That’s pretty brave,” Enjolras tells him quietly, “to just, you know, apply.”

Grantaire can’t help but laugh. “Brave is not the word for it. I was scared shitless I’d end up having to _stay_ , and become a plumber like my dad. Don’t get me wrong – I love my dad, and I really respect him for what he’s done, because he never even got the chance to go to uni, let alone art school. But I knew that if I stayed at home I’d just, I dunno, wither away into nothing.”

They’re at the house now, and have been for some time, without realising it. There’s an awkward pause at the top of the gate, like they don’t know what to do with each other. For all his questions, Grantaire can’t get the measure of Enjolras, can’t work out if he likes him, or just fancies him. That he fancies him is unquestionable – apart from Montparnasse, Grantaire has never seen someone so beautiful. He thinks it’s the eyebrows. And the freckles.

Enjolras eventually coughs and pushes open the gate, walking briskly up to the front door. Grantaire is left, trailing in his wake. He feels as though he might be on the edge of drowning.

 

That night is fun. The six of them stretch out on the gables of the roof of the coach house, under blankets and rugs, passing joints backwards and forwards. Combeferre and Courfeyrac are cool – whilst Courfeyrac’s energy never seems to deplete, Combeferre’s thoughtful and witty contributions more than even the balance out. Enjolras and Montparnasse seem to have called a truce on whatever silent rivalry was between them, because they start good naturedly reminiscing about winding up babysitters when they were younger. Grantaire is content to lie in silence next to Éponine, who is equally silent. Grantaire once asked why she chose to speak out so little when she obviously had so much to say, and Éponine responded that she let her jewellery do the talking for her. The clank and the clutter of the pieces of metal that always adorn Éponine’s arms is fairly noticeable, but the resounding silence when the jingle of her movements isn’t to be heard is even louder.

That evening, Grantaire decides to stay. The sofa bed downstairs in the coach house is taken by Combeferre and Courfeyrac, but he is used to sleeping alongside Montparnasse. Montparnasse pads around his room shirtless, the black inkings of his tattoos stark against his torso, whilst Grantaire wriggles down inside the huge double bed.

“Why didn’t you mention that you had a twin?” Grantaire asks, once he’s got comfy. Montparnasse looks up from where he is meticulously folding one of his signature white shirts.

“I don’t know… I guess, Enjolras has always been the clever one, you know? Up until I got into St Martin’s, everyone just thought I was just massively gay, that being good at clothes and colours and sizes wasn’t, you know, a real skill. It always fucked me off.”

That is something that Grantaire can sympathise with. He feels the bed dip beside him, and then Montparnasse’s arms reach out and draw their bodies together. Grantaire drifts off with his head rested against Montparnasse’s shoulder, but his dreams are filled with blonde hair, not dark.

 

The next morning is filled with winter sunlight and Grantaire wakes early. He knows Montparnasse will be pissed off if he rouses him from his beauty sleep, so he gently untangles his body and lopes downstairs in search of a cup of coffee and a cigarette. When he gets into the kitchen, feet wet from the garden, he meets Enjolras, who looks surprised to see him.

“I didn’t know you stayed…” Enjolras says doubtfully, looking up from the newspaper, “I didn’t see you on the sofa.”

“Yeah, I slept with ‘Parnasse,” Grantaire mutters as way of explanation, greedily reaching for the cafetière, and totally missing the way that Enjolras’ eyes widen.

“Oh, I see.”

The silence stretches on comfortably, as Enjolras reaches for the newspaper, and Grantaire goes questing for some cereal. Once he’s sat back down and eaten his way through two bowls of Special K, he feels more in the mood to talk.

“Did you really mean what you said yesterday? About fashion and design?”

Enjolras shuts the paper and meets Grantaire squarely in the eye. “Are you familiar with the writings of John Ruskin?” he asks. Grantaire is momentarily distracted by the fact that he has just noticed that Enjolras’ hair is down from its bun, a curling blonde mass, but makes an effort to rally himself.

“Is that the guy that thought that pubic hair on a woman was gross? So he refused to sleep with his wife?”

Enjolras snorts with laughter, and his face is transformed into something far softer and more accessible. “Yeah, that’s the one. But any way, he thought – along with lots of the Victorians – that art should serve a social or moral purpose.”

“I know who John Ruskin is,” Grantaire interrupts gently, “but I don’t agree. I think art can just… be art. It doesn’t need to exist for a purpose. Beauty for beauty’s sake, you know?”

Enjolras shakes his head. “I disagree. I think if you have those skills, you should put them to good use. Make a point, make a stand, make a comment on a social issue that’s important to you, don’t just… I don’t know, waste yourself.”

Grantaire doesn’t agree, won’t agree, can’t agree, but in that moment, with the sun pouring through the Georgian bay windows onto Enjolras’s face, he is hit with such a good idea for his evening-wear collection that he can’t even find it in himself to argue.

 


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire is left alone with a throbbing eye in an empty room. He can’t think of anything to do that would improve the situation, so he turns and goes back into Montparnasse’s bedroom.  
> Montparnasse is a snuffling shape in the bedcovers, and when Grantaire slides in, he edges over to him. “Thank you, R, for... you know. You’re a good friend,” he mutters sleepily. 
> 
> Grantaire faces the wall. 
> 
> “I know.” he replies back, into the dark.

He’s in the coffee shop next to his halls (a great, pretentious, hipster-y place that only offers coffee in ‘white’ and ‘black’ options) when Jehan appears by his side as if by magic. There is a general rule to dressing for art school – you either keep it minimalist and let your work do the talking, or you decide to go all out. Jehan is firmly in the latter school. Today he is dressed in silver high-waisted disco pants and a purple crop top. Grantaire feels monochromatic in comparison.

Jehan lightly slips into the seat next to him and flicks his long braid around, turning to face Grantaire. “I hear,” he says very seriously, “that you have an idea for me.”

“How did you find me?” Grantaire pauses, rethinks, “wait, no, don’t answer that. More importantly, how did you know I wanted to speak to you? I haven’t told anyone yet.”

“I could sense it in your aura,” Jehan tells him airily. Grantaire gives him a look. Jehan wilts slightly under the gaze, and then admits, “Eponine told me to come and find you. She thought you might appreciate it.”

However Eponine manages to read Grantaire’s mind is beyond him. Either way, he isn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, because he has been thinking about texting Jehan.

“I have an idea for my collection,” Grantaire starts, and then (because he’s absolutely terrified of telling people about his designs) takes a restorative sip of his six pound coffee, “and I was wondering if you wanted to collaborate.”

Jehan’s face is a mask, because he might be one of Grantaire’s closest friends, but Grantaire knows full well that he won’t commit himself to anything unless he thinks that it is worth his time. “Go on.”

“So the brief is evening-wear, yeah, plus collaboration with someone else in the faculty. And I was thinking – what if we do androgynous evening wear. I mean, dresses for men.” Grantaire doesn’t want to admit it to anyone – won’t admit it to anyone – but the whole idea is inspired by Enjolras. If there is one thing Grantaire hates, it’s the idea of gender stereotypes, especially in fashion, because they narrow down so many great options. So if he’s going to design an evening-wear collection for men, maybe he should take Enjolras’s advice, and imbue it with something he cares about, something he wants to change.

Jehan looks delighted. “R, that is a fucking great idea. Count me in. Do you have any preliminary sketches?”

Grantaire hands over the sketchbook that he’s spent the last three days hunched over, and Jehan flicks through the pages of charcoal drawings with a faint smile on his face. “Talk me through your influences,” he says, reaching out to steal some of Grantaire’s drink.

Grantaire settles back in his chair and reaches for his book, preferring to hold it himself. “So I started with history, and then I went back and toyed with the idea of Versailles, Louis XIV – you know, silks, ruffles and bows. But that didn’t feel right, so I went even further back in history, to when the idea of breeches-for-men and skirts-for-women wasn’t so delineated. And, well…” he flicks to his most recent sketches, the ones he is most proud of, “I thought about creating something with Grecian influences. Part dress, part tunic, lots of draping – sort of architectural, maybe a fine silk with a column print.”

He doesn’t want to sound too arrogant, but he thinks he might be onto something. When it comes to twenty-first century smart tailoring, Grantaire knows that he’s miles behind the class – that he’ll never be able to recreate Montparnasse’s instinctive feel for lines and edges and the precise number of suit buttons. Far better he completely goes his own way, rather than try and compete.

Jehan’s hands are twitching for Grantaire’s pencil, and when given it, he pulls an errant napkin towards him and starts to draw, muttering under his breath. “So the collaboration could go two ways – we could think about medallions, about armour, engraved armour, Achilles and Patroclus and Grecian gods. Or…” Grantaire is transfixed by his hands, which are almost unbelievably long and elegant, “Or we could go for the victor’s wreath. Create headpieces in gold and silver, laurel leaves, you know – a sort of male, a male tiara.”

They sit there for the rest of the morning, bandying ideas backwards and forwards, and Grantaire starts to feel fizzy. Fizzy with bubbles of quiet excitement, because out of all of his work this year, this is already starting to feel like the best, by a long way. He is beginning to feel like he isn’t just mediocre, that he actually has talent, that he’s going to make something out of himself that isn’t just a blasé imitation of last year’s Moschino knits. 

 

The studio is quiet and empty when Grantaire’s phone buzzes. He very carefully puts down the template he’s cutting out and checks the screen.

 _Montparnasse [18.12]_ : Mum and Dad are having a dinner party tonight

 _Montparnasse [18.12]:_ Enjolras’ friends are still here

 _Montparnasse [18.12]:_ I NEED U

 _Montparnasse [18.13]:_ plz save me otherwise the evening will just devolve into every1 arguing about israel/palestine and ebola and I wont have anything 2 say

 _Montparnasse [18.13]:_ … also that woman from i-D magazine is gonna be here :D :D

Grantaire knows that there is no point arguing, that the food will be good, and that a secret part of him wants to see Enjolras again. So even though he had planned to spend the rest of the evening in the workshop, ploughing ahead with his designs, he types out a quick _‘I’ll b there in 30 if the circle line isn’t too blocked, make sure there is a gin and tonic waiting for me xx’_ , and shuts up shop.

When he leaves the massive building that Central St Martins is housed in, it is dark outside. The winter nights start earlier and earlier, but Grantaire doesn’t mind walking through the city when the sun’s gone down. The lights are beautiful, and everything is on a gigantic scale, and he likes feeling dwarfed. The circle line is packed, as always, on a Friday night, and it takes him a good ten minutes to fit onto a train. By the time he arrives at Montparnasse’s house, it’s been just under an hour. He hopes that that gin and tonic is actually ready.

He rings the doorbell, and the door is opened by one of Enjolras’ friends – by Combeferre, Grantaire mentally corrects himself. Combeferre gives him a long look, like he’s seeing right into him, before his solemn face splits into an easy grin. “Come in,” he says, reaching out a hand with a firm grip to shake Grantaire’s, “we’re all in the drawing room.”

Like always, Grantaire sheds his coat and his scarf and his gloves, unpeeling all the layers that make up his daily armour, and follows Combeferre down the familiar corridor that leads to the drawing room. Like all the rooms in Montparnasse’s house, the drawing room is elegantly decorated – antique sofas lie alongside contemporary artworks, whilst bookshelves line one long wall. Grantaire finds himself being swept up in a round of introductions, kissing Montparnasse’s parents on the cheek and blushing when he meets the woman from i-D magazine whose work he so admires.

“Grantaire is studying menswear with darling Mont at Central St Martin’s, Celine,” Montparnasse’s mother tells the journalist, before sliding away to another group of people. Grantaire is left standing awkwardly. Life growing up in the industrial backwaters of Essex did not groom him for networking or small talk.  Celine is friendly and easy to talk to, though, and she asks all sorts of gentle questions, so that before he’s noticed it, he’s telling her all about his current collection, even though he hasn’t even told Montparnasse yet, hasn’t even told his tutor, has only told Jehan.

“I’m trying to rout the conventions that say that black tie means that men have to wear suits, and women have to wear dresses. I mean, for years Chanel has been producing wonderful tailoring and trousers for women to wear – just look at some of the things Ellen DeGeneres wears on the red carpet – but there still isn’t an outlet for men to wear anything other than traditional cuts. So I’m taking classical influences and combining them with some modern lines…”

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices that Enjolras has joined them, and is listening hard. He swallows, and his voice tails off. Celine still looks interested though, and puts her hand on his arm. “Grantaire, that sounds extremely interesting. Look, when you’ve finished stitching and have taken some test shots, send them to me. I’d love to run a small feature on you as part of our ‘new talent’ column. Give my PA a call and we’ll sort it out.”

She gives him a smile and moves off, leaving him with Enjolras. Enjolras raises his eyebrows.

“It sounds like you’ve got something good going for you,” Enjolras says, “you must be pleased.”

Grantaire is frozen, because for the last few days, the only time he has thought about this boy, this off-limits boy, is when he is sketching. He is loath to admit even to himself that Enjolras’s lithe form has become his muse, and he is petrified that something in his voice might give the game away.

He settles for an uneasy “yeah, I guess so,” and looks around the room for someone who can save him. At that moment, Enjolras’s dad announces that they’re all going to go in for dinner, and Grantaire practically dives for the door.

At the table, he makes sure he’s sitting at the opposite end from Enjolras, and finds himself next to Courfeyrac and Combeferre. As the starter is served, he asks Courfeyrac what life is like at Oxford, and his companion enthusiastically launches into stories of antique libraries and croquet lawns. Grantaire warms to him throughout the course of dinner, and by the time pudding (winter plums served with shortbread) is served, he can’t resist asking a question.

“So what’s the deal with Enjolras?”

Combeferre is the first to answer, dark eyes impenetrable. “What do you mean, what’s the deal?”

“I don’t know… I guess he seems, kind of, intense.”

The three of them all glance up to the head of the table where Enjolras is animated, arguing with one of the adults about the National Health Service. Next to him, Montparnasse is sitting, looking bored. Catching Grantaire’s eye, he mouths ‘help me’. Grantaire grins at him and shrugs. ‘What can I do?’ he mouths back.

Courfeyrac is laughing at Grantaire’s statement. “Yeah, E is a bit intense. He actually got banned from the university debating society because he made the Chair cry. But he’s a great guy, you know? Like, he obviously really cares about his friends, and he’s always good fun. Plus, you’d never know it, but he clearly adores his brother.”

Grantaire raises his eyebrows. “Really? It doesn’t seem like they get on. I’d never even heard of Enjolras before I met him, like, a week ago.”

“Really? That’s strange. We hear about Montparnasse all the time – the fact that he’s at art school, the fact that he used to dress Enjolras up as Baby Spice when they were younger…”

The image of Enjolras, who seems so assured, being dressed up as Baby Spice by ‘Parnasse is beyond ludicrous. Grantaire catches Courfeyrac’s eye, and the three of them dissolve into fits of hysterical laughter. _“Baby… Spice…”_ he hears Combeferre wheeze, and they all collapse again. Perhaps they’ve drunk more of the expensive wine then they thought.

Their hysterics are broken by everyone getting up: clearly, dinner is over. Montparnasse and Enjolras make their way down the room, Montparnasse with a grumpy expression on his face. “You were supposed to be here to be my back-up,” he tells Grantaire reproachfully, looking for all the world like a kitten whose tail has been tugged, “and instead you’re having fun without me.”

Grantaire claps Montparnasse on the shoulder, before sliding his arm around him. “Ah, don’t sulk, M, that’s just how the seating worked out. Anyway, I was thinking – shall we go out after this?” Montparnasse doesn’t look too convinced, and it is only when Grantaire casually mentions that Eponine has texted him, and wants to come too, that he agrees (almost immediately.)

Courfeyrac and Combeferre are standing slightly awkwardly, like they don’t want to intrude. Grantaire glances up and flashes them a quick smile. “Of course, you’re supposed to be coming too! We’ll show you what nights out are like outside of the provinces.”

Courfeyrac is all easy grins, as he reaches out to push Grantaire gently. “Oxford isn’t a province. But we’d love to come.”

“What would we love to do?” Enjolras has joined the conversation, and is looking around the group inquisitively, his eyes catching on Grantaire’s arm, which is still loosely looped around his brother’s shoulder.

“Go out with Grantaire and Montparnasse.”

“Oh, yeah… why not?” Enjolras directly meets Grantaire’s eyes. Grantaire swallows.

 

The queue for the club in Dalston is short, but Montparnasse holds him back as the others troop inside. From the depths of his jacket pocket – silk lined, of course – Montparnasse extracts a small plastic bag holding three pills. He hands one over to Grantaire, and puts another in his own mouth. Grantaire swallows without asking. He trusts Montparnasse, and, more importantly, he doesn’t trust himself to get through the evening with Enjolras just on alcohol. Right now he feels as though he might combust if Enjolras so much as brushes his shoulder. They both nod at the bouncer and make their way in.

Jehan is at the bar inside, and Grantaire heads straight towards him, planning to wash down the MD with a whiskey. Jehan greets him amicably, and the pair of them prop themselves against the counter top, surveying the centre of the room. The club is more like a warehouse really, completely dark, with a packed floor in front of a set of decks that is illuminated by an eerie strobe. The DJ picks up the beat, the music beginning to get heavier and heavier. Jehan puts a hand on Grantaire’s arm, and looks at him with eyes heavily lidded with glitter. “We need to dance, R.”

Grantaire doesn’t argue. The pill is beginning to sink in, mixed with all the wine from dinner and the whiskey, and as he edges through the crush to his friends, he feels as though he’s wading through something thicker than air. Here on the dance floor, he meets Montparnasse, who is clearly high as a kite, and who is moving his lithe hips to the beat. Grantaire joins in, and suddenly he feels great, absolutely fucking great. He’s with his best friend, and the music and the drugs are banishing all the things that feels as though they threaten to eat at his edges. Time starts to pass so quickly, under the strobes, that all Grantaire can really see is snapshots of Jehan and of Eponine and of Montparnasse’s longing face as he stares towards her.

When it gets so hot that Grantaire can feel his curls sticking to the back of his neck, he ducks out for a breather.  The air outside is still cold, and his black roll neck is sticking to his body, but the shock feels good after the thickness of the club. He stays outside for more than one cigarette, striking up a conversation with the bouncer, but eventually he heads back inside.

The moment Grantaire enters the room, he stops. In the centre of the floor, lit up by an errant spotlight, is Enjolras. His blonde hair is down, and his eyes are closed, and he is writhing to the music with such grace that Grantaire can feel the blood rushing to his groin. He doesn’t have time to focus on that, though, because Jehan is pulling at his sleeve. He turns, to see Jehan’s face wide and panicked.

“Montparnasse is over there, I think something is wrong.”

Grantaire looks, sees the dark shape, ducks and weaves till he’s by his side. Clearly, Montparnasse is upset. He smells strongly of vodka, and when he turns to face Grantaire, he can see a couple of errant tear tracks.

“M, what’s wrong? Bad trip?” Grantaire shouts over the music.

Montparnasse wordlessly gestures to the dance floor. Grantaire looks, and this time he sees beyond Enjolras. Eponine and Combeferre are caught in a tight clinch.

“I thought she fucking liked me,” Montparnasse moans, suddenly sagging onto Grantaire’s shoulder. He is obviously far more gone than Grantaire had anticipated. “I thought she… you know, I really, like I think I _love_ her, man.”

Grantaire corrects his opinion of his friend from ‘gone’ to ‘absolutely fucked’ when Montparnasse starts to sob. “I think I better take you home, mate,” Grantaire tells him, resignedly. He had been hoping that maybe he might meet someone tonight, might get lucky, but being a good friend is more important. “Do you have your keys?”

Montparnasse shakes his head and mutters _‘my brother’_ under his breath. Grantaire sighs and props him up against the bar, pouring him a glass of water. “Don’t move,” he tells him sternly, and sets off across the room again, except this time with less enthusiasm.

When he reaches Enjolras, he has been kicked three times and trod on once. His face is not one of happiness. He reaches out to tap Enjolras on the shoulder from behind, but Enjolras surprises him, grabbing his hand and pulling him close. “Stop talking,” Enjolras tells him, “just dance.” Grantaire can do nothing but oblige, even though Enjolras’s eyes are still shut. They move together, hips aligned, Grantaire trying desperately to remember Montparnasse at the bar, drunk and upset, in order to crush the boner that is threatening any second. He leans into Enjolras, mutters in his ear, “I need your keys, your brother wants to go home.”

Enjolras’s eyes snap open, and even in this silvery half light, Grantaire can see him blush. He backs away from Grantaire. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, I just assumed you were Courf! Oh god, I wouldn’t have – otherwise…” Grantaire can tell he’s trying to apologize, not to offend, but he can’t help but feel crushed anyway. He shifts uneasily from one foot to the other, the only static figure in a mass full of writhing bodies, and looks up from under his eyelashes.

“It’s okay. Just… ‘Parnasse needs to get home, and he said you’re the only one with keys, so…” he trails off, awkwardly. Enjolras nods.

“Right, well I’ll come with you. Give me a second to say bye to Courf… and to, uh, Combeferre, wherever he is, and I’ll meet you by the door.”

Five minutes later, the three of them are going out into the city. It’s nearly four, so all the tubes have stopped running, and the only option is to get a bus. Montparnasse puts his head in Grantaire’s lap the moment they sit down, and grabs his hand.

“R, I love you,” he says, with all the seriousness of someone who is completely drunk. He places a sloppy kiss on Grantaire’s hand, and smiles up at him. “I really really do love you.”

Grantaire strokes Montparnasse’s hair and thinks that in any other situation, Montparnasse would never dream of letting his expensive wool coat touch any of these bus seats. Enjolras sits silently across the aisle, watching them without comment.

When they get back to the house, Enjolras helps Grantaire carry Montparnasse up to bed. Grantaire strips him down to his boxers, and then checks his wallet. He doesn’t have enough cash to get a bus to his halls – he’s going to have to stay again. He quietly closes Montparnasse’s door, heading to get a glass of water, when he bumps into Enjolras in the sitting room outside. Enjolras is shirtless, dressed in a tatty grey pair of trackies.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean…” Grantaire’s eyes catch on the tracksuit bottoms. “Are those mine?” he asks, incredulously.

Enjolras looks down at himself, surprised. “Um, I found them in the wash so I assumed they were my brother's?” he replies, slightly defensively.

Grantaire laughs. “No, they’re definitely mine… I keep them here to sleep in whenever I’m round.”

“Right.” Enjolras replies. There’s an awkward pause, before he reaches for the waistband. “Well, I can always take them off and give them back?”

“No.” Grantaire replies, almost instantly. He regrets it. Starts again, “no, don’t worry, keep them.” He takes a deep breath, can’t tell if it’s the ME or the whiskey or just the lack of sleep that is prompting him to speak. “Unless you, you know, you want to take them off. Now.”

There’s a pause. Enjolras looks like he doesn’t know what to say. His hands hover awkwardly at his waistband. Grantaire’s eyes are stuck on the trail of light blonde hair that ducks below that waistband, like a CD rom that refuses to go onto the next track.

 _So help me, God,_ Grantaire thinks, and closes the space between them. His lips meet Enjolras’s hard, a clang of teeth, and he winds his hand into the blonde hair that has now been drawn back into a bun. Enjolras’s body is stiff, unresponsive underneath him, and then all of a sudden flexes, and kisses back. There’s one intoxicating minute of backwards and forwards, and heavy breathing, before Enjolras’s hand comes up and punches Grantaire in the eye. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he asks, anger flashing across his face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t…” Grantaire trails off, doubled over clutching his face. There’s not much you can say when you’ve just kissed your best friend’s twin brother, who might not even be gay, and who is clearly so repulsed by you that he decides to punch you rather than just push you off. “I didn’t mean to force myself on you or anything.”

Enjolras looks furious. “So you just put my brother to bed, your _boyfriend_ , who just told you he actually loves you, and then you come out and - suddenly you’re all over me?” His nostrils flare, he looks even more magnificent. “I might not get on with Montparnasse but I sure as hell love him enough not to let you _cheat_ with me.”

Grantaire can’t even think of anything to say, because Enjolras might be clever but he has got it so _so_ wrong.

“Fuck you. You don’t even deserve my brother.” Enjolras tells him, turning and walking off to his room. The door closes with a slam.

Grantaire is left alone with a throbbing eye in an empty room. He can’t think of anything to do that would improve the situation, so he turns and goes back into Montparnasse’s bedroom. Montparnasse is a snuffling shape in the bedcovers, and when Grantaire slides in, he edges over to him. “Thank you, R, for... you know. You’re a good friend,” he mutters sleepily.

Grantaire faces the wall.

“I know.” he replies back, into the dark.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plz review if you have thingz to tell me! Or come and find me at one-heart-one-soul.tumblr.com. Kudos makes the university reading I haven't done marginally more bearable.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I like these,” he hears Enjolras say unnecessarily loudly to Courfeyrac, just by his left ear, “they’re red.” 
> 
> God give me strength, Grantaire thinks. “No shit.” he mutters, very quietly under his breath. Obviously not quietly enough, though, because Enjolras shoots him an absolutely vitriolic look. “I may not appreciate art, Grantaire,” Enjolras hisses, low enough so only the two of them can hear it, “but at least I’m not so cowardly as to cheat on my boyfriend with his brother, and then pretend like nothing happened.”

Grantaire wakes up late the next day, wrapped in a cocoon of duvet. Outside, he can hear miserable winter rain slashing down the window panes, and his head is thumping. In bed it’s warm and womb-like and he can conveniently not think about the train wreck that was last night. He spends an hour drifting in and out of consciousness, until the Montparnasse-shaped lump beside him stirs and gives a groan. “What the fuck,” Montparnasse whimpers, “did we take last night.”

Grantaire shuts his eyes, shrugs. “Beats me, you were the one that bought it.”

“I thought it was MD but now I’m not so sure.” Montparnasse flops over to face Grantaire, the duvet swaddling him, looking for all the world like a Montparnasse sausage-roll. “I feel fucking abysmal.”

Grantaire grunts incoherently as a response, and then decides that he might as well ask him about Éponine. “Man, what happened last night? You know… with Ep?”

Montparnasse screws up his face tight, and for all his tattoos and swagger, he looks strangely vulnerable. Grantaire feels like a mother hen watching her chick stagger out into the world for the first time. “I don’t fucking know,” Montparnasse moans, and then cracks open one eye. “Tell me I didn’t cry. Tell me _she_ didn’t see me cry.”

He laughs, ruffles Montparnasse’s hair. “Don’t you worry, you saved all the tears for me. And your brother. He didn’t look best pleased, though.”

“Oh _god.”_ Montparnasse snuggles further down into the duvet. “Enjolras is _never_ going to let me forget this, I’ll have reproachful and judging looks for the next three years.”

“I don’t know…” Grantaire thinks back to last night, to the righteous fury in Enjolras’s eyes, to the hurt look beneath it. “I think your brother might care about you a whole lot more than you think.”

There’s a derisive snort next to him. “What on god’s earth gave you that impression?”

“I don’t know,” he replies thoughtfully, scratching his leg. “Something that Courfeyrac said last night. The way he acts around you.”

Montparnasse shakes his head, staring at the ceiling. “Well I don’t know what you’ve been hearing but I can tell you, R, my dear brother holds nothing but contempt for me. You heard him the other day. Nothing I do can live up to his precious _ideals._ The rest of us are just weak fools orbiting his _magnificence._ ” He sits up, ruffles his hair. “And please can we stop spending time with those two friends of his? They’re such a fucking drag.”

Grantaire doesn’t agree, because he likes Courfeyrac’s sense of humour and Combeferre’s wittiness, and he thinks that in any other circumstance, Montparnasse would like them too. In this situation, though, he has to confess that he’d probably not want to see more of Combeferre than he could possibly help.

“Parnasse… you still haven’t actually talked about Ep. I mean, you don’t have to, but I feel like something is brewing.”

His bedmate is purposely not meeting his eye, but he talks anyway. “I just, I really like her. She’s funny and considered and she has really nice teeth…” Grantaire can’t help but laugh, and Montparnasse shoves him so he half falls off the bed, “Shut up!” There’s a pause, and then Montparnasse’s voice comes again, a bit quieter. “I don’t really like girls that often so it felt like kind of a big deal. I don’t think she even noticed me.”

“M, trust me, there is no way she didn’t notice you. You are the most noticeable person I’ve met.”

Montparnasse looks touched, like he always does when receiving a compliment, even though his childhood can’t have been void of them. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Grantaire looks at him seriously. “Mate, you’re one of the fittest people I’ve ever met. Your bum in those jeans…” he tails off. The pair of them face each other for a second, expressions deadpan, before they burst into laughter. Grantaire grabs one of the overstuffed pillows that has fallen on the floor, and hits Montparnasse over the head with it. The situation quickly devolves from there.

When there’s a quiet knock on the door three minutes later, and Enjolras enters the room, he is straddling Montparnasse – still only wearing his boxers – repeatedly bashing him with the pillow, whilst swan-down feathers snow down around them. Grantaire can admit to himself, with good grace, that from Enjolras’s point of view, the scene looks damning.

Enjolras looks deeply deeply uncomfortable, and refuses to meet Grantaire’s eye. He coughs, and shifts from foot to foot. “Um, hi Mont…” he trails off, and then sees the packet of paracetamol by the bedside table, seemingly remembering his purpose. “I was just checking to see if you felt alright after last night. You seemed pretty gone.”

Montparnasse shoves at Grantaire’s chest, muttering “Get off me you great lump,” and then sits up, scrubbing a hand through his dark hair. “Yeah, I’m fine thanks. Looks like Grantaire got me back in one piece, he’s a lifesaver really.”

Enjolras gives the most forced laugh that Grantaire has ever heard, and seems to lunge manically for the door. “I’ll see you later then!” he practically yelps, and then the door slams shut and the room is silent.

“That was weird,” Montparnasse observes, standing up and stretching so all of the bones in his muscular back make a nasty cracking sound, “my brother acts so fucking bizarrely around you. Maybe he fancies you, eh?” He turns to look at Grantaire, a silly smile on his face.

“Don’t even joke.” Grantaire mutters, finding his roll-neck and pulling it over his head. “Don’t even joke.”

 

The awkwardness with Enjolras lasts right up until Christmas. Grantaire can’t avoid being at his house, because to suddenly refuse to come round after practically living there would make Montparnasse suspicious, and he really, _really_ doesn’t want Montparnasse to get involved. In the first place, it would probably make things between the two brothers super tense. In the second place, Grantaire suspects that Montparnasse would be pissed off with him if he thought that Grantaire actually even fancied his brother a tiny bit. Joking aside, Grantaire knows that Montparnasse has a serious chip on his shoulder when it comes to Enjolras, and would probably feel that Grantaire was choosing his brother over him.

So in the last few weeks of December, Grantaire has to grit his teeth and bear the frosty looks and pointed put-downs that come from the blonde member of the family every time they encounter one another. Add this to the fact that Combeferre and Courfeyrac _still_ don’t seem to have gone home, Combeferre actually seems to be _seeing_ Eponine now, and Montparnasse is refusing to talk to either of them, without explaining why, and the resulting atmosphere is unpleasant to say the least. A few days before he heads back to the sticks to endure another teeth-grittingly awkward family Christmas, Grantaire arranges to meet Montparnasse and Eponine at the Tate Modern in order to see the newly remounted Seagram Murals. Enjolras, who seems to have decided that he should always be around Montparnasse whenever he arranges to meet Grantaire, in order to keep an eye on things, has announced that he’s tagging along (even though he wouldn’t be able to tell a Rothko from a Matisse). Combeferre has also decided to come along, given that Eponine is going to be there, and seeing as Courfeyrac has nothing else to do, he’s turning up as well.

 _Great_ , thinks Grantaire as he shivers outside the Turbine Hall, waiting for the motley collection to show, _it’s the world’s most dysfunctional tour group._ He spots Montparnasse’s outline crossing the Millenium Bridge first, walking at a fair clip and clutching an extremely stylish (and probably extremely expensive) camel coloured cape around his shoulders. Montparnasse approaches rapidly, groaning when he reaches Grantaire.

“This is going to be an absolute train wreck,” he mutters, “I don’t know how I’m going to survive it.”

Grantaire makes a grunt of agreement. “I know. Like the cape though. New buy?”

“I needed something to cheer me up after hearing all about Combeferre’s date from Courfeyrac all the way through dinner last night.”

Grantaire can see Combeferre and Eponine approaching now, hand in hand, with Courfeyrac and Enjolras bringing up the rear. Combeferre’s black coat looks cheap, Grantaire thinks uncharitably, like it’s made out of acrylic. He tries to crush the mean thoughts, because he still quite likes the other man, but Montparnasse is genuinely looking like someone is mincing his heart in a garlic crusher, and it is one of the duties of a best friend to unconditionally hate the competition.

By the time the other four arrive, Grantaire is absolutely freezing. They make their way inside to the cavernous hall, and then mount the stairs until they reach the new exhibition room. Rothko was the first painter that Grantaire studied in A-level history of art, and he will always associate that feeling of excitement, of new vistas being opened up before him, with the dark tones of many of his works. When he enters the room, he tries to get into the zone – tries to feel the quiet loneliness and focus his eyes to the right level so that he can properly appreciate the depth and the consideration that has been put into these canvases, but it’s bloody hard when he seems to be lumbered with the least artistically sensitive people in the universe.

“I like these,” he hears Enjolras say unnecessarily loudly to Courfeyrac, just by his left ear, “they’re red.”

 _God give me strength,_ Grantaire thinks. “No shit.” he mutters, very quietly under his breath. Obviously not quietly enough, though, because Enjolras shoots him an absolutely vitriolic look. “I may not appreciate art, Grantaire,” Enjolras hisses, low enough so only the two of them can hear it, “but at least I’m not so cowardly as to cheat on my boyfriend with his brother, and then pretend like nothing happened.”

Grantaire does not have time for this, does not want to hear himself so thoroughly character assassinated when his only crime is kissing someone at the wrong time, and being a bit too touchy-feely with his best friend, so he shakes his head and silently moves off. He can feel the weight of Enjolras’s hateful stare boring into his back, which makes it all the harder to concentrate on enjoying himself. When Courfeyrac innocently asks a question about mural technique, Grantaire jumps at the chance to answer it and occupy himself, and he gives Courfeyrac an extremely thorough lecture, taking him through the development of Rothko’s working life, and the story of the Seagram murals themselves. Courfeyrac, eventually looking a bit desperate when Grantaire segues into telling him all about Rothko’s apprentices, makes a hasty excuse and heads off the bathroom, leaving Grantaire alone again. He can no longer see Enjolras anywhere, so he starts again at the beginning of the exhibition, systematically working his way down the paintings.

 About twenty minutes later, and Grantaire finds that he has taken a wrong turn somewhere, and has ended up in a small anteroom between chambers. He’s just trying to work out which of the three avenues out he wants to take, when he hears a voice that makes him freeze.

“I thought you were gay.” Eponine is saying, very quietly and clearly to Montparnasse who is frozen with his back to Grantaire. There is no way Grantaire can move now without interrupting what looks like a very private conversation, so he freezes and huddles into the shadow of one of the pillars.

There’s a pause, and then Montparnasse replies, equally quietly, “I’m not.”

Eponine has raised one dark eyebrow. “I’m _not._ ” Montparnasse says again, this time louder.

There’s a creak, and Grantaire suddenly sees Enjolras appear next to another pillar. He spots Grantaire and makes to move, before Grantaire puts a finger to his lips and jerks his head at the pair under the bright lights of the gallery. Enjolras freezes, and Grantaire turns his attention back to the other two.

“I like boys,” Montparnasse is now saying, enunciating every word, “but I also like girls. I’m what is known as a ‘bisexual’, rare and unimaginable creatures that we seem to be.”

It is Eponine’s turn to pause. Grantaire is reminded of the time he saw two old men play chess in a pub in his town. Each player would pause and consider the board very carefully before even considering moving a piece. “Everyone thinks that you’re dating Grantaire,” she says, finally. Grantaire finds it difficult not to huff at this point. This is getting ridiculous. They hang around Eponine all the time.

“No.” Montparnasse tells her.

“I’ve seen you kiss before.”

“That was in a club, and we were both drunk. Friends kiss all the time, it doesn’t automatically mean that we’re dating.”

Against all of his better judgement, Grantaire drags his head to look at Enjolras. Enjolras’s eyes are wide and horrified, and they stare straight into his. Grantaire can’t bear any more, can’t bear all of the emotional fall out that will inevitably result from this afternoon, can’t bear the awkward apology that he knows is coming. He decides that contrary to his previous belief, he can squeeze behind this pillar and make a stealthy get away down the next gallery. Enjolras’s eyes are imploring him not to go, but Grantaire folds himself up and slips away into the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank for all of ur love. This was just meant to be a small nugget of a fic but I have been surprised by how much I've enjoyed writing it. I hope you enjoy reading it too. Again, reviews are lovely and kudos keeps me wriggling with joy in bed so go for it
> 
> and find me at one-heart-one-soul.tumblr.com for more fun'n'games


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He thought that he had found himself in London, had drawn his own outline in sharp, clear graphite. Now he finds that it wasn’t graphite that he used to define those edges at all. It was charcoal, and the more time he spends at home, the more he can feel those tentative, sketchy lines being smudged away into nothing. 
> 
> Grantaire suffers through the rest of Christmas Day in silence.

Grantaire’s home town has, unsurprisingly, not changed a bit in the six months since he packed up his garment bags and left for the big city. The train station is still a depressing, brutalist hunk of concrete, and most of the houses are uniformly concrete as well. As he gets on the rickety bus which takes forty minutes to judder and halt along a stretch of road that by rights is only fifteen minutes long, he can feel his shoulders tense up. Grantaire hasn’t seen his mum or his dad since he left for Art School, even though London is only about forty minutes away, and he has mixed feelings about the reunion.

Her worn face looks both nervous and proud when he finally manages to stagger through the slightly chipped front door, one huge backpack hoisted over his shoulder.

“You look so _tired,_ Grantaire,” his Mum tells him, wrapping him in a hug that smells of detergent and a bit of floor polish. Grantaire lets a small grin flit across his face as he leans out. “I am tired. It’s been a busy term.” _I might look tired,_ he thinks, _but you feel so fragile I’m worried I might break you._ He kisses her cheek all the same.

When he makes his way into the small kitchen, with granite imitation worktops and a lino floor, his Dad is sitting at the table over a copy of The Daily Mail, but gets up quickly when he spots Grantaire hovering at the door. “Hello, son,” he says gruffly, and one hand comes down to rest awkwardly on Grantaire’s shoulder. Grantaire pauses for a moment, before pulling his dad into a hug. He may not see eye to eye with his parents all the time – they might be completely mystified by his choices, worried that he’ll never catch a sensible career, that he’ll end up back home to live off the dole – but he loves them all the same.

Later, when he’s back in his small room, with all of the clichéd Morrissey posters of his teen years cracked and fading on the fall, the look on Enjolras’s face comes back to him. Grantaire can’t help but feel weak, feel pathetic, because he should have stayed. He should have stayed to comfort or celebrate with Montparnasse, and to explain, to accept Enjolras’s apology. His mind’s eye, which is so practiced at lingering on faces and folds, gently sketches out Enjolras’s hair, his slightly pointed nose, his freckles. Then the loo – just a thin wall behind his bed – flushes, and Grantaire jolts himself out of his reverie. Enjolras does not belong here, does not belong to Grantaire, will never belong to Grantaire, in this small house with its stained brown carpets and net curtains. Grantaire rolls over and shuts his eyes. If he’s going to dream tonight, it’s going to be of foreign places and strange faces, not an electrifying shock of blonde hair.

 

Christmas is both brilliant and unendurable. When Grantaire makes his way downstairs on Christmas day, his Mum and Dad are already waiting under the plastic assemble-yourself-tree. Traditionally, his parents haven’t been able to afford both stockings and Christmas presents, so the parcels under the tree are all the more special for that. Over cups of tea, his parents open Grantaire’s presents to them: he’s bought his mum some expensive hand cream from a posh shop in London, and her face lights up as she reads the gold embossed packaging. His dad is looking at the pair of football tickets with something akin to reverence, at which Grantaire gives an internal sigh of relief. He’s never been particularly into football, but his dad is a lifelong Chelsea fan, and he knows that the afternoon of shouting at the pitch and eating pies will bring them closer than an eternity of skirting around each other in this house. The downside of buying such expensive presents is that Grantaire has had to dip into his student loan to buy them, which means a certain amount of deprivation when he gets back to London. It’ll be Tesco value vodka for at least a month before he can afford the good stuff again.

Still, it’s worth it for the sense of community that is fostered in the small living room. The tacky tinsel and the multi-coloured fairy lights suddenly look less unbelievably tasteless, and more jolly and festive. Grantaire is enjoying eating malteasers and joking with his Dad so much that he is actively surprised when his mum pushes a huge box towards him with a nervous grin.

“We thought you should have one of your own,” she says, hands drumming on the top of the paper-wrapped box. Grantaire looks up at her, and then carefully, oh-so-carefully, prizes away the wrapping. Inside is a Singer sewing machine, brand-new, shiny and to Grantaire’s eyes, fucking beautiful. He feels a sudden lump in his throat, because this is something akin to encouragement, this is _acceptance_ of his path in life, and that’s not something he ever really expected.

“Don’t want you to be under equipped when everyone else is geared out with the latest kit,” his dad says gruffly, wrapping one arm around Grantaire’s bony shoulder and squeezing. The insight is startlingly perceptive, because whenever Grantaire wants to sew something, he always has to stay in the studio, way after the others have left, or beg to use Montparnasse’s industrial machine. Singers are expensive, and this one must have cost at least a month of his Dad’s wages. The lump feels as though it is getting bigger and bigger, but he wills it away and looks up at his parents. “It’s great, Mum, Dad. I love it.”

The downside of the day comes when he gets given another parcel. This time it’s smaller, squishier, and wrapped in unbelievably tasteless paper with technicoloured reindeers splattered across the front. He gives his parents a surprised look, because he wasn’t expecting another present.

“It’s from your Auntie Jo,” his mum explains, getting up and moving towards the kitchen. Grantaire, with far less care this time because he doesn’t particularly like Auntie Jo, rips open the paper. Inside is what could reasonably be called the most hideous shirt to exist, ever. It commits almost every possible fashion faux-pas – it is shapeless, baggy, with no real collar to speak of. Even worse, it is brown, with white and grey vertical pinstripes. Grantaire hates it.

His mum pops her head round the door to the sitting room. “How lovely! And how thoughtful! Don’t forget, sweetheart, Auntie Jo is coming for lunch, so you better hop upstairs and put it on.”

 

Christmas day goes downhill from there. The shirt hangs off Grantaire’s skinny frame, and the polyester mix itches. He feels absolutely miserable in the hateful thing, but knows that if he causes a fuss his mother will cry and his father will get angry. He’s just contemplating whether or not he can give the seams a quick go-over on the Singer, maybe make it a little less shapeless, when the front doorbell rings. Auntie Jo is here, and she’s brought with her the whole motley collection of relatives.

Grantaire has to endure sitting next to his cousin Darren at lunch. Darren is studying bricklaying at the local technical college – something that Grantaire might have admired, if Darren weren’t such a great oaf.

“So how is life in London?” Grantaire’s Uncle Kev asks, whilst managing to shove a truly impressive number of gravy-soaked roast potatoes into his mouth in one go. “I still can’t understand why you felt the need to go up and create so many blimming costs for your poor Ma and Da. Darren’s college does a perfectly good sewing course, doesn’t it Darren?”

Darren scratches one side of his acned face and grunts. “Yeah, it does… although it’s only girls that study sewing and all of that bollocks. Wouldn’t be seen dead, me, doing something like making dresses and that.”

Auntie Jo beams at her son, pride clearly etched across her face. “Our Darren’s doing so well in his bricklaying course, he’ll be able to join his Dad at the builder’s firm next year!”  

Grantaire doesn’t allow his face to change even a tiny bit, because he’s heard it all before a hundred times and he knows that arguing back won’t make his case any better. Instead he focuses on shredding each tiny leaf off his brussels sprouts, and trying to will the lump away in his throat. He might look impassive, but it’s still hard not to care when the people around you literally eviscerate the thing you love at every single opportunity.

Whilst Grantaire has tuned out, the conversation has moved from ‘our Darren’s bricklaying job’ to ‘our Darren’s love life’. This is probably even a turn for the worse.

“Darren has a lovely girlfriend, don’t you sweetheart? Tell your Aunt and Uncle all about her.”

Grantaire moves on to dissecting his carrots as Darren coughs and launches into an account of the girlfriend, who is apparently called Chantelle (Grantaire is not judging, he’s trying really hard to _not_ ), and who is doing a hairdressing course at the same college. Grantaire thinks wryly that he probably has more in common with Chantelle than he does with Darren, so it’s a shame that they will never meet – mostly because Grantaire will not spend more than the absolute minimum time possible with his cousin.

Grantaire hears his name being spoken, and comes back to himself with a jolt. “Sorry?” he asks, rather rudely, to the table in general.

His mum comes to his rescue with a small smile that doesn’t quite reach the nervousness in his eyes. “Auntie Jo was just asking, sweetheart, if you had, uh, if you…” she trails off, before taking a deep breath and trying again, “Auntie Jo was asking if you had a girlfriend.”

Now he knows why his mother is so worried. Grantaire has never talked about his sexuality with his parents, never even mentioned a preference either way, but they must know. Surely, surely they know that their twinky, fashion-designing son is at least a bit gay, if not completely and flamboyantly homosexual. The words stick in his throat when he tries to say something. Maybe this is the moment to out himself, to stand up and say, ‘actually, I like dicks, and I’ve never kissed a girl in my life’. Not that he’s kissed that many boys. It’s when he looks up and sees his mother again, sees her looking so frail and worried, that he knows he can’t do it. He hates that it’s this way, but he can’t bring the shame on his parents that a confession would inevitably create. He swallows, and then forces out a hollow laugh. “No girlfriend, yet. Maybe in the New Year.”

Auntie Jo tuts and shakes her head. “You should be more pro-active, Grantaire. I’m sure Darren would be happy to take you – what is it they say these days? – ‘out on the pull’, wouldn’t you Darren?”

Darren leers, and slaps a meaty hand around Grantaire’s bony shoulders. He can feel his whole skeleton reverberate with the impact. “Of course, I’m sure we can find you a lovely bird to grab a handful of.”

There is nothing that Grantaire would like less. He stares at the bird that’s on his plate, a wodge of turkey swimming in Bisto gravy, and thinks about how unappealing it looks.

“It’s a good thing that neither of our boys have turned out to be poofters,” Uncle Kev is saying to Grantaire’s Dad, “The couple next door have got one of those and I always think how unnatural it is. I mean, we were all a bit worried about you for a bit, son,” he wags his head at Grantaire, “But I’m glad to hear Darren is going to set you on the straight and narrow.”

If Enjolras were here, beautiful Enjolras with all of his mighty convictions and firey rebuttals, he would stand up and say something. He certainly wouldn’t shrink into this polyester-mix shirt and nod nervously. Grantaire has never hated himself, never hated every crawling, cowardly, pathetic inch of his skin more than he does now.

He thought that he had found himself in London, had drawn his own outline in sharp, clear graphite. Now he finds that it wasn’t graphite that he used to define those edges at all. It was charcoal, and the more time he spends at home, the more he can feel those tentative, sketchy lines being smudged away into nothing.

Grantaire suffers through the rest of Christmas Day in silence. The next day, he packs his bag, kisses his parents and heads straight back to the city. Just as he gets off the train at Liverpool Street, he spots a homeless man sheltering from the Boxing Day drizzle in an arch of the stairway. Bending down, he gives the man the horrible brown shirt, and then walks away without a second glance.

 

Grantaire is cocooned like a sausage roll in his duvet watching season two of ‘Orange is The New Black’ when the knock on his door comes. He briefly closes his eyes for a second, wondering why no one will leave him alone when he just wants to stew in his own misery and sense of self-loathing, when the knock comes again. Grantaire staggers out of bed, briefly checks his appearance in the mirror – glasses, dark circles, stubble, size twenty black sweatshirt, pyjama bottoms, very on trend for SS’15 – before reluctantly pulling the door open.

On the other side is Enjolras, his hand already raised for a third knock, clad smartly in a beautiful navy blue wool coat. Grantaire blinks at him for a moment. Then he nods once to himself, and shuts the door in Enjolras’s face.

He’s halfway back to bed when Enjolras knocks again. “Grantaire! I know you’re in there!”

This is an entirely pointless thing to say, Grantaire observes to himself, of course he knows I’m in here, he just saw me. This logic doesn’t seem to have occurred to the ever-passionate Enjolras, who seems to be as dedicated to breaking down Grantaire’s door as he is to righting the wrongs done to the oppressed.

Grantaire hits his spacebar and unpauses the episode, but not even Laverne Cox’s dulcet tones can drown out Enjolras’s shouts from behind the door. “I know you probably don’t want to speak to me, but I really, really want to apologize!”

Ah, _apologize._ That was what Grantaire had been worried about. As horrible as life had been when Enjolras had thought he was a good-for-nothing, cheating lowlife that only deserved disdain, it had at least been easier than life with a grovelling Enjolras would probably turn out to be. Plus, Grantaire had to admit to himself that part of Enjolras’s disdain had felt earned. A sideline in self-loathing is always more fun when you’ve got someone to loathe with you.

Enjolras doesn’t go away or get tired, though, so after five minutes Grantaire gets up again and opens the door – mostly out of pity for his next door neighbours, who don’t deserve this kind of shit at twelve on a Saturday morning. This time Enjolras looks surprised, like he wasn’t expecting Grantaire to respond. Grantaire shrugs at him. “You’d better come in,” he tells Enjolras, before turning back toward his bed.

Like most student accommodation in London, Grantaire’s room closely resembles a shoebox, with one wall fully dedicated to the bed, and the other to his desk, which is piled with sketchbooks and material samples and now his Singer sewing machine. Enjolras takes one look at the bed, before perching awkwardly on the swivel chair beside the desk. Grantaire tries not to laugh at how comical Enjolras looks, bobbing gently on the chair’s suspension with a painfully earnest look on his face.

“Grantaire, I really am – I’m sorry.”

Grantaire laughs shortly. “Sorry for punching me, or sorry for acting like I was the scum of the earth for three weeks?”

Enjolras looks stricken. “For both – I, I reacted terribly and I can’t apologize enough. I know I seemed, I _seem_ like an utter dick, I just thought–”

 Grantaire has heard enough. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not though, I can’t believe I _punched_ you.”

He shrugs, because there isn’t much else he can do. Grantaire has got to admit it, he _has_ imagined Enjolras in this room before in the last few weeks, but in his imagination the scenario was very different. Now the moment has arrived, Grantaire finds suddenly that he wants it to be over. “Enjolras, I said it was fine. It’s fine.”

Enjolras is clearly not very good at listening to instructions, because he doesn’t stop. “I just thought that you, and Montparnasse, you know – Montparnasse has never really had a _friend_ before, and you seemed so close, and so I just assumed that, you were more. More than friends, I mean. After what Eponine said, though, I knew I was wrong. I tried to find you after you left, but no-one had seen you, and then M said you had gone home. And, I mean, I didn’t want to ask him for your number because I didn’t think you’d want him to know, so I waited.”

Against his better instinct, an instinct which is screaming at him to shut Enjolras up and usher him out before he can inspect the place too closely, or even worse, infect it with his passion and his bloody _optimism,_ Grantaire is interested. “How did you find me?”

Enjolras looks tentative. “I asked your friend that we met on that night out – the one in the silver disco pants? Jean?”

_Jehan, you traitor,_ Grantaire thinks. “Jehan, he likes to be called Jehan,” he says.

“Jehan then. I asked him, and he said I could find you here at this time on a Saturday. I hope it’s okay… I didn’t mean to intrude.”

At that, Grantaire does laugh, openly and for a long time. “You might not have _meant_ to, Enjolras.”

Enjolras looks even more awkward. “I – I can go. I just wanted to know if there was something I could do to make it up to you.”

Grantaire is just about to usher him out, because the room is starting to _smell_ like Enjolras, and he shouldn’t be reacting so viscerally to that fact, he barely knows this boy, still doesn’t even know if he’s gay, when his eye falls on his open sketchbook. The preliminary sketches for Grantaire’s collection are still there, splashed across the page, and Grantaire suddenly has an idea. “If you really – if you really want to make it up to me, there is something you can do.”

Enjolras looks like Grantaire’s offered him a lifeline – he obviously doesn’t like being wrong, obviously is _never_ in the wrong, doesn’t know how to behave. “What is it?” he asks slightly breathlessly.

“I want you to model for my collection,” Grantaire says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thank you all 4 reading and for any scraps of love you might see fit to throw my way   
> [my tumblr](http://www.one-heart-one-soul.tumblr.com)


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Montparnasse waits in silence for Grantaire as he struggles with his own skis. When he’s finally done getting the wretched things off, Grantaire straightens up and looks his friend squarely in the eye. “Sometimes,” Grantaire says, “your brother is all right. And sometimes,” he hoists the skis onto his shoulder, “he’s an absolute total dick.”

The run up to New Year has traditionally never been an exciting time for Grantaire: whilst most people prepared for parties, Grantaire tended to mope around at home or obsessively visit the few charity shops that his town had to offer in the hopes of miraculously finding a bargain buy. Whilst this year offers slightly more hope in the fact that Grantaire is now in London, not Essex, he’s still not wildly enthused about the prospect of the upcoming festivities. He hasn’t seen Montparnasse since he snuck away at the exhibition, and whilst this only actually amounts to about four days in reality, being on the other side of Christmas makes it feel far longer. After day five of relative silence – admittedly Montparnasse had sent him that dog gif, and a link to an article about the intersection of fashion and religion, but in comparison to the usual daily deluge of snapchats, whatsapps, texts, voicemails and facebook chats this is barely worth mentioning – Grantaire is beginning to get worried. Going off the grid on the day your best friend has a deep meaningful conversation with the girl who has broken his heart is not generally considered to be good behaviour. It’s a relief, therefore, when the next day starts as so many have since the beginning of the academic year: with a barrage of texts from Montparnasse.

_Montparnasse [9.57]: so mum and dad are taking Enjolras and I to our chalet 4 skiing_

_Montparnasse [9.58]: but I think they feel bad 4 taking us away on NYE and also me and e arent exactly best buds_

_Montparnasse [9.58]: yeah they basically said we cld each ask 1 friend_

_Montparnasse [9.58]: don’t you fucking dare make jokes about how youre my only friend_

_Montparnasse [9.59]: but yeah you basically are my only friend please come I dont wanna be alone_

Which is essentially how Grantaire ends up going skiing over the New Year with Montparnasse and his family.

 

Enjolras has clearly been forbidden by Montparnasse to invite Combeferre – Grantaire still isn’t exactly sure what happened with Eponine at the Tate, because Montparnasse hasn’t yet got drunk or whiny enough to discuss it, but Combeferre still definitely seems to be in his black books – so it is the eternally cheerful Courfeyrac who hails Grantaire across Gatwick Terminal One at five in the morning.

“Grantaire! Over here!” He waves with more energy than anyone has the right to have before sunrise, and gathers him into a loose one-armed hug that surprises Grantaire with its genuine affection. “Good to see you man,” Courfeyrac tells him, “this holiday is going to be banging.”

Grantaire looks at the collection of people around him. Montparnasse’s dad is angrily shouting down the phone what appears to be a very unfortunate Japanese investor, and Montparnasse’s mum is nowhere to be seen – probably already shopping in duty free. Enjolras has a face like someone has both trodden on his tail and made a casually homophobic remark to boot (“Nothing to do with you,” Courfeyrac assures him, “E isn’t really a morning person”) whilst Montparnasse himself has draped himself elegantly over the suitcase trolley, and is wearing a silk eye mask. Grantaire can’t decide if the holiday will be banging, or an absolute mess. _Probably both,_ he decides, and then moves towards the counter to check himself in.

The whole flying shebang is something that reveals the class gap between Grantaire and, well, everyone else travelling. To put it bluntly: Grantaire has never got on a plane in his life. Abstractly, he thinks that it sounds fairly fun and generally pretty cool. In reality, Grantaire cannot understand how on earth this metal tube is supposed to launch itself into the air and then hurl itself back to the ground, without killing everyone on board.

“I cannot understand how on earth this metal tube is supposed to launch itself into the air and then hurl itself back to the ground, without killing everyone on board,” he tells Montparnasse with a slight note of panic in his voice. Montparnasse raises one corner of the silk eye mask – a considerable concession given that the guards at security literally had to prise it from his face – and raises an eyebrow.

“Just relax Grantaire, I promise you, flying is nothing.” With that, he snaps the eye mask back into place. Grantaire looks around, his nervousness mounting. Whilst he sits there, waiting for the plane to take off, hands sweating nervously, Courfeyrac is casually reading on a kindle and Enjolras has one earphone in and looks _bored._ Grantaire allows his gaze to linger for a second on his face, which even when consumed by boredom manages to be more attractive than every male model Grantaire has ever _met_ during his time at St Martins, but jolts away the moment Enjolras’s eyes meet his.

He’s studying the ceiling of the plane a moment later, one knee twitching awkwardly, when he feels a tap on his shoulder. Grantaire turns to see Enjolras leaning over the armrest that divides their two seats. Enjolras smiles – at him for probably the first time ever, Grantaire’s mind notes – and proffers one headphone.

“Do you want to listen?” he asks.

Grantaire nods, not really caring about whatever is playing, but he’s still completely surprised when the dulcet tones of Steven Fry come wafting through the earphone. He raises his eyes at Enjolras, who is settling back into his seat.

“What?” Enjolras says defensively, folding his arms across his chest, “I like Harry Potter. Especially the fifth one.”

Grantaire smiles wryly at him. “I’m sure you do… a student youth movement rebelling against the authorities by doing extra _work._ ”

On the other side of the seat, Enjolras looks temporarily outraged, but then relaxes and seems to cede the point. “All I am saying is that Angsty!Harry is the best Harry.”

Personally, Grantaire disagrees, because obviously Triwizard!Harry is the best Harry, but he can’t find it in himself to argue, listen to the audiobook and worry about the plane all at once. Eventually, he opts for listening to the audiobook, and closes his eyes. Very soon, Steven Fry’s voice soothes him into a sort of soporific drowse, and he fails to notice when the plane takes off.

 

The essential flaw in the plan of going skiing with Montparnasse is revealed when they get to the chalet. Montparnasse hurls his beautiful black leather Longchamp bag onto the double bed he is sharing with Grantaire, and heads straight into the massive wardrobe without a backwards glance. Grantaire enters the room far more slowly, and takes his time looking around – the roof is gabled and made of beautiful oiled pine, and the bed is absolutely huge. He’s just tentatively sitting down and testing the mattress when Montparnasse backs out of the cupboard, dragging a huge box.

From out of the box he extracts a pair of white boots and – a snowboard. Montparnasse straightens up and brushes his hands looking pleased with himself. It’s only when he catches Grantaire’s eye that he speaks. “What’s up?”

Grantaire swallows. “I thought we were here for skiing,” he tells Montparnasse, his eyebrows raised. Montparnasse has the grace to look slightly abashed.

“We are here for skiing – or, at least, most of the family is. I can’t actually ski though. I decided that snowboarding looked way cooler when I was about seven, and it’s all I’ve done since.”

Grantaire groans and flops back onto the bed. “But I can’t ski _or_ snowboard, and I bet it will be about a bazillion times harder to learn to snowboard straight off.”

“Ah, you’re having _that_ conversation.” Courfeyrac’s voice hails from the door, and Grantaire lifts his head just enough to see both Courfeyrac and Enjolras lurking in the corridor outside. He motions them in with a lazy wave of his foot, and then flops back down.

“Enjolras and I have just been having the same talk. Turns out that I can only snowboard, and Enjolras can only ski.”

There’s a pause, and then Montparnasse’s voice comes with all of the satisfaction of someone who thinks they’ve got everything under control. “Well that’s sorted then. Courfeyrac and I can snowboard together for the first few days whilst Enjolras teaches Grantaire to ski, and then at the end of the week we can all go on the slopes together.”

Getting Enjolras to model for him for a few hours is one thing, spending whole days at a time under what Grantaire imagines will be Enjolras’s stern tutelage is quite another. He stares up into the gables of the roof and tries desperately not to groan. From somewhere next to his right ear, Montparnasse speaks again: “Unless, E, you’d rather do something different?” Montparnasse’s tone makes it quite clear that something different is _not_ on the cards.

When he replies, Enjolras’s voice sounds strangled. “No. Of course I’ll teach Grantaire to ski. That’s fine.”

 

That afternoon, Grantaire receives his first lesson. Enjolras is as stern and unforgiving as Grantaire had thought he’d be, and he’s ashamed to admit even to himself just how much he likes it. Whilst Enjolras is demonstrating how to snap ski-boots in and out of skis, Grantaire dreamily ponders on how his bum manages to look good even when concealed in a pair of bulky salopettes. This state of lazy reflection lasts about as long as it takes for Enjolras to make Grantaire walk to the top of the very tiny beginners slope – at least, Enjolras assures him that it’s ‘very tiny’, because to Grantaire it seems ‘absolutely fucking massive’. Enjolras makes Grantaire _hold his hand_ as he demonstrates the snow-plough position, and even though their skin is cloaked by layers and layers of Teflon and neoprene, the contact makes Grantaire’s heart beat painfully fast, although that may admittedly be due to the fact that he is also fucking _scared_ of falling over and looking like a twat.

When they get to the bottom, after about fifteen minutes of inching down at two miles per hour, Grantaire tries his best to grin brightly at his teacher. “Well, that was great thanks, I feel like I learned loads. Shall we go and get a drink now?”

Enjolras looks stern. “You’ve barely done anything. We are _not_ going to get a drink until you can make your way down that slope on your own.”

Grantaire groans. “You’re a hard man, Enjolras. A hard, cruel man.”

Enjolras’s face doesn’t even twitch with a smile. “This might seem like benevolence, but I can tell you, I actually want to do some skiing this week. I don’t want to be stuck at the bottom of the mountain whilst my brother and my best friend get to do all of the best slopes.”

This is a very different Enjolras to the one who begged for forgiveness in his tiny student room, Grantaire thinks to himself. The iciness in his tone stings only a little less than the ice that has somehow made its way down inside his ski jacket. He forces himself to give an approximation of a smile. “I see. Well we better do it again, then.”

The rest of the afternoon is spent in total silence for Grantaire, as Enjolras criticizes him almost constantly. Instead of replying with all of the sarcastic remarks that are burning on the tip of his tongue – _‘well I may not be able to do a parallel turn, Enjolras, but I highly doubt you’ve ever saved someone from getting bottled outside your front door’_ – Grantaire grits his teeth and follows all of the instructions. By the time the sun is nearing the horizon, Grantaire manages to ski down the entire slope on his own with what he thinks is an impressive amount of control. Montparnasse and Courfeyrac are waiting for him at the bottom, both with snowboards hiked over their shoulders. Montparnasse in particular is gaining admiring looks from nearly everyone around him, clad as he is in a full body white eighties ski-suit, matching boots and a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses.

Courfeyrac hails him cheerfully. “Grantaire! What progress, you look like a natural.”

Grantaire sticks one pole into the snow with more force than is strictly necessary as Enjolras sweeps up next to him in a shower of snow. “I can assure you, Courfeyrac, I am _not_ a natural.”

“I’ll say.” Enjolras kicks off his skis, lifts them onto his shoulder and walks off with Courfeyrac without a backwards glance at Grantaire.

Montparnasse waits in silence for Grantaire as he struggles with his own skis. When he’s finally done getting the wretched things off, Grantaire straightens up and looks his friend squarely in the eye. “Sometimes,” Grantaire says, “your brother is all right. And sometimes,” he hoists the skis onto his shoulder, “he’s an absolute total dick.”

Montparnasse laughs, and wraps his free arm around Grantaire’s body. “You’re telling me. I’ve had to live with him for the last nineteen years of my life. Come on, I need a fucking drink.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soz I know it's short but I wanted to get what I had posted b4 I head back off to UNIVERSITY and have to actually do some real work 
> 
> next chapter: DMCs in the snow, the introduction of a chalet girl and new year's eve 
> 
> as always, all the love u give me makes me as happy as one of my pugs who has just been allowed to snuggle in my duvet
> 
> and if that isn't enough, come and find me on [tumblr](http://one-heart-one-soul.tumblr.com)


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire wants to argue with him, wants to show him that it is all very well holding high-minded convictions when you have parents who are funding your entire university education, and an interior-decorated mansion in Chelsea to go home to, but that those convictions are almost entirely incompatible with a life of enforced mediocrity. The problem is that Grantaire also wants to fall to his knees and worship Enjolras: he wants to stoke the fire higher, wants to smooth out the worried frown that lurks between Enjolras’s eyebrows sometimes, wants to gently brush out his wild mane of blonde curls and see him loose limbed and vulnerable in sleep. He wants to lick his way along the crevices and canals of Enjolras’s muscular back, and also to hold his hand in the most mundane way possible.

The next day, Grantaire wakes up feeling like death. Since moving to London, his alcohol tolerance has gone through the roof – nearly every night at Central St Martins seems to end at one of the obnoxiously hipster pubs that litter the area around campus – but even his liver can’t handle the vast amount of vodka hanging around Montparnasse’s chalet. Combined with the creeping dread of the prospect of another day spent being verbally eviscerated by Enjolras, and Grantaire would quite frankly remain under the covers. Montparnasse is revoltingly perky, though, and forces Grantaire out of bed and down to breakfast in what seems like a jiffy.

Outside, the snow is blindingly bright and does nothing for Grantaire’s thumping head, but the cold air is surprisingly refreshing. Courfeyrac and Montparnasse peel off with apologetic smiles, and Grantaire is left shifting awkwardly from one foot to another, whilst Enjolras consults a map.

“If you want to go off on your own, I won’t mind” he offers with a weak smile. Half of him hopes that Enjolras will take the hint and stride off in a blaze of his own righteousness, whilst the other, treacherous half that has been deprived of an opportunity to masturbate whilst lying next to Montparnasse’s snuffling form, is begging Enjolras to stay. Although Enjolras has never been more than gently cordial to Grantaire, has in fact mostly been an utter dick, Grantaire can feel himself slowly but surely falling hard for him. It isn’t just Enjolras’s beauty – although that plays its part – it’s the strength of his convictions. Grantaire has never believed in much, has never had the opportunity to believe in much when he’s grown up surrounded by people who never even got the chance of escaping provincial life, but the ardour and passion of Montparnasse’s twin is unbelievably alluring.

Grantaire wants to argue with him, wants to show him that it is all very well holding high-minded convictions when you have parents who are funding your entire university education, and an interior-decorated mansion in Chelsea to go home to, but that those convictions are almost entirely incompatible with a life of enforced mediocrity. The problem is that Grantaire also wants to fall to his knees and worship Enjolras: he wants to stoke the fire higher, wants to smooth out the worried frown that lurks between Enjolras’s eyebrows sometimes, wants to gently brush out his wild mane of blonde curls and see him loose limbed and vulnerable in sleep. He wants to lick his way along the crevices and canals of Enjolras’s muscular back, and also to hold his hand in the most mundane way possible.

In short, Grantaire is fucked. He can’t even pinpoint when these feelings came crashing down upon him with all the weight of a tonne of chemistry textbooks. It was probably somewhere in between the Harry Potter and the utter contempt.

Enjolras looks up with a surprised expression on his face. “Don’t be an idiot. I’m not going to leave you to break your leg on your own.”

Grantaire allows an easy grin to spread across his face, even though inside his insides are sloshing full of leftover spirits and sexual frustration. “I wasn’t planning on skiing alone. I thought I might go and sit in the café.”

“You came to ski, so we’re going to ski,” Enjolras tells him shortly, and that’s that.

His frosty demeanour changes, however, the moment they get on the chairlift that will lift them from the beginner’s slopes at the bottom of the mountain to the harder slopes at the top. Enjolras’s shoulders tense up even more than usual the moment the lift leaves the ground, and Grantaire looks at him curiously. He catches Grantaire’s eye, which is now lingering on his hands, gripping the safety bar with considerable force, and lets out a short laugh.

“I’m, um,” he pauses, looking down at his poles laid across his lap, “I’m actually afraid of heights.”

Grantaire would giggle with glee if he didn’t think it would make Enjolras push him off the lift, heights or no heights. As it is, he works to keep his face composed.

“That must be difficult, especially if you’re a good skier,” he says neutrally, now looking at his own poles.

Enjolras takes a deep breath. “Yeah, it is. It’s actually why I never, um, learnt to snowboard. The poles make me feel more in control.”

Grantaire looks up to the top of the mountain: the chair lift is a long one, will take a good fifteen or twenty minutes. He turns back to Enjolras, who is looking a little bit sick. “I’ll be fine once I’m back on the ground,” he offers weakly, “I just don’t like being in the middle of the air.”

Grantaire considers his position. The dickish thing to do would be to take the piss, or to remain silent and let his skiing instructor battle it out on his own. A large section of Grantaire is telling him to take that course, to make Enjolras pay for all the times he’s made Grantaire feel worthless, feel like utter shit. Then his ears tune into Enjolras’s breathing, unsteady in a way that Grantaire can only imagine him being in the throes of passion, and his sympathy kicks in.

“Did you know that most people use the word ‘jealous’ incorrectly?” he asks Enjolras. Enjolras turns to him, an interest already sparked in his eyes.

“What do you mean, ‘incorrectly’?”

“Well, technically you’re only jealous of things you possess or have a claim on. So you can be a jealous boyfriend or girlfriend, but you can’t be jealous of someone’s coat. You’re actually _envious_ of their coat.”

“That’s such bullshit.” Enjolras actually shifts his whole body around to face Grantaire, the fear of the dizzying drop below completely forgotten. “Firstly, you don’t _possess_ your partner – they’re not your fucking belonging. They’re someone who you have a connection with but the idea of having a claim on them is just revolting. Plus, linguistic snobbery is one of those things that just _perpetuates_ –”

They argue the whole way to the top of the mountain. Enjolras doesn’t look down once.

 

The great surprise of the morning is that Grantaire isn’t as shit as initial evidence suggested. He’s a bit nervous on the first full piste he goes on, but he does actually get down it okay. After a couple of hours, he’s actively able to keep up with Enjolras. In an added bonus, Enjolras seems to have loosened up significantly since the cable car ride, because he hasn’t snapped at Grantaire once. They’re even actively getting on quite well – although the back-and-forth arguments that seem to spring up every time one of them expresses an opinion are still very much in existence, the tone has changed from combative and hostile to friendly and engaged. They break for lunch at one, and have an interesting chat over hot chocolate and french fries, and then motivate themselves to go back outside.

Enjolras surveys the ever present map again whilst Grantaire struggles with his skis, and then turns to Grantaire with a smile. “This afternoon, I thought we could do something different.”

“Oh?” Grantaire asks, trying desperately not to fall over.

“This morning we did most of the main pistes,” Enjolras gestures at the large area of the map outlined in blue, “and the other pistes are probably still too difficult for you.”

Grantaire doesn’t argue. He might be doing better than expected, but his body is aching all over from the control needed for even the more basic slopes.

“So I thought that we might take this run,” Enjolras gestures at a long, wavy line in bright pink that circles all the way around the surrounding mountains, and comes out in the village below, “which is actually a toboggan run but – it will probably take us a couple of hours, but it’s not too difficult. There’s some great scenery, and some parts are quite steep, but it’s more fun than just doing the same slopes over and over.”

The line does look very long, and Grantaire is really fuckingtired, but he can tell that Enjolras doesn’t want to have to take the lift back down to the bottom. This way, they can ski down _and_ avoid the sheer black slopes, and Grantaire isn’t willing to shatter the tentative peace that has formed between them in the course of the morning.

“Looks great,” he tells Enjolras, and in return Enjolras looks pleased.

Once they’re actually on the toboggan run, Grantaire is glad he chose to do it. As they round the side of the mountain that’s covered over by pine trees and come out into the open, his jaw drops – the landscape is unbelievably beautiful, snow-covered and rugged and barren and bleak and picturesque all at once. The sun is going down, and the snow is beautiful and pink-tinged. The only mountains Grantaire has ever seen before have been a few measly ones in Wales, and the Alps make those seem unbelievably insignificant. Enjolras slows to a halt and Grantaire skis up next to him. Together they stand in silence, looking out over the peaks and valleys of the mountain range.

“I do like you, you know.” Enjolras breaks the silence so suddenly that Grantaire jumps.

“What do you mean?”

“I know it seems like I really hate you but, you know, I don’t. Like, I don’t just feel bad about the whole thing with, uh, with Montparnasse. I actively like you. As a person.” Enjolras is looking at his feet whilst he says it, even though the view is so breath-taking that ripping your eyes away from it is almost physically painful.

Grantaire doesn’t really know what to respond. His mind is treacherously disappointed that Enjolras meant ‘as a person’ rather than ‘as someone I would like to hold hands with and potentially fuck into the mattress on a nightly basis’. Then again, even being liked as a _person_ by Enjolras is a step up from being unconditionally loathed by him, so he should really take his perks where he can get them.

“That’s nice,” he ends up saying weakly. Next to him, Enjolras seems to deflate to Grantaire and it occurs to him that he probably should have said something more meaningful. “If it matters,” he offers, “I like you too – as a person.” There’s a pause. “Just not when you’re being a dick. Which is often.”

Enjolras lets out a quiet laugh. “So everyone tells me. I’m not very good at social interactions. I forget that not everyone is like Combeferre or Courfeyrac, and understands what I’m thinking almost instantly.”

He seems in a pliant mood now they’ve got their awkward, year-eight expressions of ‘like’ out of the way, and Grantaire suddenly wants to take advantage of that fact.

“So what was it like when you and ‘Parnasse were at school together?” he asks casually, groping in his pocket for a cigarette. Enjolras looks askance at the cigarette, but his eyes don’t tighten like they normally do. Instead he takes a deep breath and thrusts his hands into his pockets.

“It wasn’t easy. We were really close friends up until we were about fifteen – mostly because, um, we didn’t make friends with the other boys that easily.” Enjolras exhales; the air comes out in clouds in the freezing atmosphere. “M and I went to a seriously intense all-boys public school in the centre of London. It wasn’t really enough to be rich, or you know, clever – you had to, um, _fit in,_ and neither of us are really good at that.”

Grantaire imagines small Montparnasse, before the self-assured languor of being _someone_ at Art School, huddled up in an ill-fitting blazer and surrounded by laddy boys. It isn’t a nice image.

Enjolras continues, still staring at the snow. “But then when we got to sixth form, things changed a bit. The school was obsessed with keeping its position on the league tables, so a lot of pressure was put on us to go to a good university. Everyone knew I was a shoe-in for Oxbridge, so the teachers respected me a lot more, and the other boys wanted help with their applications.” He notices Grantaire sniggering at his confidence, and shrugs his shoulders. “I might sound arrogant, but it’s true. I’ve never got anything less than ninety five percent in a public exam.”

Grantaire – who has never got more than forty percent in a public exam – tries to rearrange his face into something resembling anything other than a smirk. “Go on, I’m interested.”

“So basically I started being more popular, plus a friend called Feuilly joined in sixth-form and he and I became friends really quickly. But Montparnasse still stuck out like a sore thumb, because he didn’t even want to go to a proper university, and he didn’t want to do any academic a-levels. So we kind of, grew apart, but it was still fine.” Enjolras picks up one of his poles and begins to use it to smush the snow at his feet; Grantaire has completely forgotten about the scenery, something he had thought impossible five minutes before, because he is transfixed by Enjolras’s face.

“Then things got a bit tricky because, um, everyone found out that Montparnasse likes boys. And that wasn’t that easy for him, especially as he was the only out person in our year. But, like, as you know, he doesn’t only like boys. He sort of ended up really _really_ fancying this girl, but she completely ignored him because she thought he was gay.” Enjolras looks up, meets Grantaire’s eyes directly. “She actually, um, asked me out.”

Grantaire whistles, long and low.

“I know, really bad. It broke Montparnasse’s heart, actually, because it looked like I had everything that he didn’t. And even worse, I think he _knew_ that I was gay, that I didn’t even like girls at all, but I wasn’t brave enough to say, so it was a massive kick in the teeth.”

His heart has stopped, his palms have gone sweaty, because that is the first time that Enjolras has even vaguely verbally confirmed his sexuality. Grantaire swallows, because what seemed hopeless and distant this morning when he thought Enjolras was straight and hated him, now seems just out of reach, now that Enjolras is gay, and likes him (even just as a person). Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that Enjolras wouldn’t describe himself as ‘brave’: Enjolras seems to him to be the bravest person he knows, ready to raise the banners in a single instant to fight for what is right. Before he can articulate this idea, Enjolras interrupts him.

“It’s actually why I overreacted so much when, um, when – when I punched you.” Enjolras blushes deeply.

“It’s okay, I’m sorry,” Grantaire tells him, resting one hand tentatively on his shoulder. “I get it now – it must have seemed like a dick move from me.”

Enjolras’s eyes flick down to Grantaire’s hand, but he doesn’t move away.

“We were both a bit stupid, but yeah, I was worried about Montparnasse thinking I was trying to steal you or something.” He laughs. “Anyway – you got something out of it, didn’t you? I have to model for you.” He makes a face.

“Don’t act like you’re not excited to strut your stuff on camera, Enjolras,” Grantaire tells him, nudging his shoulder. The intensity of the conversation has dissipated and given way to something lighter, jokier, but Grantaire can feel the weight of the revelations just made on his shoulders. It explains a lot about Montparnasse and the way he behaves, and it gives him hope. Hope that Enjolras’s punch hadn’t just been borne out of righteous anger and absolute revulsion with his physical form, but out of something that’s been around for much longer: a fear for his brother. That hope is something that Grantaire should ignore, but that he knows he is going to cling on to.

Enjolras, meanwhile, is pouting. “I _was_ hoping that the skiing lessons might pay off my debt.”

“Sorry man, but a promise is a promise. The skiing lessons are something you’re doing out of the goodness of my heart.”

At that, Enjolras turns and abruptly pushes off, heading back down the run. As he rounds the corner, he turns back to look at Grantaire. “My mind isn’t always as _good_ as my heart, Grantaire.” He flashes a wink. “Race you to the bottom.”

Grantaire scrambles to keep up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back at university and things are actually p tough work/lifewise, so updates aren't as speedy - but I'm still really enjoying taking the time to write.  
> I hope you've enjoyed, and if you want to make me squeal like a micro pig, leave a comment or some kudos 
> 
> Come and find me on [tumblr](http://one-heart-one-soul.tumblr.com/html/)


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjolras is coming closer across the room, and Grantaire can’t help but notice that he’s still wearing the grey trackies – his grey trackies.
> 
> “Look, don’t be an idiot. You can’t sleep in here. The room isn’t heated at night and the temperature will drop like a stone any second,” he says reasonably. Grantaire tries not to shiver.
> 
> “I’m fine, really. I don’t mind.” He repeats, pulling the blanket further up his body. It suddenly becomes of momentous import that his nipples, at least, are covered.
> 
> “You’re not going to be fucking fine, Grantaire, when you’re frozen to death. Just–” Enjolras sighs and rakes a hand through his hair, which is down and curling across his shoulders, “–look you can sleep in my bed.”
> 
> “I’m fine,” Grantaire is half way through repeating when he realises what Enjolras has said; moreover, Enjolras has clearly decided to take no for an answer, and is walking away, gesturing at Grantaire to follow. Which he does. Because he is weak. And in love. With Enjolras.

Once they’ve stowed their skis and made their way back to the house, pink-cheeked from both the cold and the exertion, they find Montparnasse and Courfeyrac lounging in the chalet’s huge open plan sitting room. The two others look up as Enjolras and Grantaire enter, and Courfeyrac jumps to his feet. Montparnasse doesn’t bother moving from where he’s sprawled over a huge, leather-studded sofa.

“Dear god, Enjolras, it’s nearly six – what have you been _doing_ to that poor boy? It’s only his second day skiing.” Montparnasse raises his perfectly groomed eyebrows.

Grantaire flushes – Enjolras shrugs easily, brushing the criticism off, and goes over to where Courfeyrac is standing. “We were doing the long toboggan run – and Grantaire agreed to do it, M, don’t act like he’s an idiot.”

Montparnasse catches Grantaire’s eye, looking dubious, and Grantaire shrugs, unsure how to communicate the fact that he and Enjolras now seem to be _friends,_ where yesterday they were bitter enemies.

“Courf and I were thinking of going out tonight, testing the après-ski atmosphere this year in the town.” The pair move together towards the stairs, Enjolras turning back to catch Grantaire’s eye. “Grantaire, do you want to come? I’m sure Montparnasse, as a good host, will do whatever you’re doing.”

Grantaire feels trapped between a rock and a hard place, because he doesn’t know how to navigate this treacherous ground, between his friendship with Montparnasse and his friendship – his raging crush and hard-on – for Enjolras. “Yeah, sounds good, um–” he turns to Montparnasse, looking pleadingly at him, “Only if ‘Parnasse is up for it though, I don’t want to drag you.”

Montparnasse heaves a deep, deep sigh, and throws his head back, exposing his long neck. “Fine, we’ll all go out together. On one condition,” he lifts his head up very slightly to directly meet Enjolras’s eyes, “We ask the cute chalet-girl to come too.”

The cute chalet-girl turns out to be called Floréal, and is indeed extremely cute. Grantaire isn’t quite sure how he managed to miss her over the last two days, because now he’s noticed her, she’s everywhere – making the whole family dinner, tidying up their bedroom, pouring champagne for Montparnasse and him with a cheery smile. It’s an uncomfortable realisation for Grantaire that he’s been so wrapped up in Enjolras, in sneaking tiny looks at him across the table and in accidentally brushing his hand when passing the water-jug, that he’s been oblivious to everything else going on during the holiday.

He’s also impressed with the good humour with which Floréal does her job, because she’s about the same age as Enjolras and Montparnasse, and it must be bloody annoying to have to wait on them hand and foot in such luxury. In any other situation, Grantaire would be the one working as a live-in-maid for a pittance, and he sure as hell wouldn’t manage to be so chirpy when taking orders for eggs benedict from a group of nineteen and twenty year-olds at breakfast.

When asked if she wants to come out, Floréal responds with a beam. “As long as your mum and dad won’t mind me taking the night off to hang out with you guys,” she tells Montparnasse, who is looking at her with a hungry glint in his eyes.

“Trust me, they won’t be having a problem with it,” Montparnasse tells her, a small smile playing around his lips. “We definitely need some feminine wiles to even out all of the masculine tension in our group.”

Grantaire catches Enjolras’s eye on the other side of the kitchen, and they both immediately have to look away in order to stop laughing. Floréal, meanwhile, looks like she is more than capable of handling Montparnasse’s bullshit

“Oh, my feminine wiles are _more_ than capable of evening out all your masculine tension, Montparnasse,” she tells him, as she ties on her apron. “Now get out of my kitchen, or you won’t be eating until midnight.”

The four of them scramble out of the kitchen, away from Floreal’s laugh. None of them miss the longing look Montparnasse darts back to the kitchen door.

“I don’t know you that well, my friend,” Courfeyrac tells him whilst clapping one arm around his shoulder, “but I would say that you’ve met your match.”

 

Dinner with Montparnasse’s parents ends up finishing at around eleven, with the whole party leaving the table full of merriment and whiskey. The adults go to the sitting room for some more whiskey, whilst Grantaire drops by the kitchen to pick up Floréal. He knocks on the door, and then sticks his head around. Inside, Floréal is up to her arms in bubbles, singing along to a Taylor Swift song merrily on the radio.

He waits for her to catch his eye, before grinning. “We’re going to head out in like, fifteen minutes, if you still want to join.”

She beckons him in with her head, and he comes around the door, warming his back against the huge open fire and looking around the huge, timbered room, whilst she finishes up with the washing, dries off her hands on a tea-towel and snaps off the radio. “Hey,” he chides gently, “I was enjoying that.”

Floréal comes to join him at the fire and raises her eyebrows at him. “Hipster and posh art-school boy likes Taylor Swift? I’m shocked.”

Grantaire shakes his head, grinning. “Hipster and art-school, maybe, but I’m not posh.”

“I guessed, actually.” He looks up to see Floréal scrutinising him from under her fringe. “You keep trying to help me clear the plates, plus you say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ like you’re pathetically grateful. It’s no great leap of the imagination to see that you’re from somewhere else.”

The fire crackles quietly in the grate. Grantaire is impressed with her perception, although he can admit to himself that there are moments when he very obviously sticks out like a sore thumb. Being surprised at drinking real champagne rather than cava, for example, or the whole not-being-able-to-ski thing. “Yeah, well, it’s nice to be asked I guess.”

“Oh, it isn’t a criticism – of you, or them. It’s just interesting.”

They wait for a bit in silence, before Grantaire catches the faint sound of Montparnasse shouting his name. “I better head up,” he tells Floréal apologetically, “That will be M asking if he can borrow my leather jacket and I want to make sure he doesn’t stretch it. More muscular than me, you know.” He waggles his eyebrows at her, and she makes a face.

“I better go and get changed then, got to try and hold my head high for all women everywhere.”

“See you in fifteen!” Grantaire nudges her with his shoulder, and then heads up the stairs, taking two at a time.

In fifteen minutes, they’re all waiting outside the front door of the chalet, bar Enjolras. Grantaire is actively surprised, because from experience he knows that Montparnasse can take an absolute _age_ to get ready, depending on whether or not he’s decided to wear make-up, but Montparnasse is here, and his twin isn’t.

Montparnasse himself lights a cigarette, the flame from his zippo lighter briefly illuminating the contours of his cheekbones and chiselled jaw, and takes a long drag, watching the plume of smoke and condensation float up into the air when he exhales. Floréal is watching him quite openly, and Grantaire smiles inwardly. It looks like things might actually go well in the romance-department for Montparnasse this week, which can only be a cheering thought, because it would be nice for one of them not to be pining hopelessly for once.

Whilst they were getting ready, Grantaire had finally asked Montparnasse about Éponine. His best friend had allowed a single, unhappy, expression to flit across his face, before schooling his expressions back into neutral, and that’s how Grantaire knows that something is very wrong there. Montparnasse happily wears his heart on his sleeve, letting the world and his wife know about his daily hurts and joys, except when something is really, really bad. Only then does his expression go blank.  In this circumstance, Montparnasse had chosen to go into the walk-in wardrobe, ostensibly on the pretence of re-examining the shirt selection for this night, before he allowed himself to reply.

“It’s difficult. She’s still with Combeferre.”

Grantaire had paused, waiting for something more, but when nothing came, he had sighed. “That’s really shit man, I’m sorry.”

There had been a clanking of hangers against the railing. “Fuck – yeah, it’s shit. I really fucking, um, liked her. I still do. But I guess she went for the intellectual, um, masculine type. There’s not a lot I can do about that.”

“Mate, you’re about a gazillion times cooler than that guy. And fuck being masculine – who the fuck wants to be masculine anyway? I’d rather be metrosexual if it means I can actually wear _decent_ clothes.”

Montparnasse had laughed at that, come out of the wardrobe with two more white shirts and held them up. “Which do you think is better?” It had been the most obvious subject change in the world, but Grantaire hadn’t the heart to point it out, and so had thrown himself into debating the various merits of two identical pieces of clothing.

Back in the present moment, Grantaire can hear the moment Floreal’s teeth start chattering. She might be wearing a warm coat, but the temperature outside is at about -10, and the whole group has forsaken the ski jackets properly appropriate for this kind of weather for more stylish outwear. Montparnasse is eyeing her shivering, and clearly decides that enough is enough. He slips back inside, only to yell up the stairs. “Enjolras! ENJOLRAS!”

From way inside the house, Grantaire can hear a muffled _“What?!”_

“We’re leaving, Enjolras, with or without you.” Montparnasse appears back outside, and links arms with Floreal. “Come on, R, Courfeyrac.” Courfeyrac takes Montparnasse’s other arm, and the three of them start to move off.

Grantaire shifts awkwardly on the spot, darting a look inside the house. Although he doesn’t know Enjolras that well, he does know Montparnasse’s twin well enough to realise that he will be _pissed_ if he thinks he’s been left behind. When he realises that Grantaire isn’t following behind, Montparnasse turns. “What’s up?” he asks, looking surprised to see Grantaire still standing next to the front door.

He swallows. “Um, I think I might actually get another jumper – you guys go on. Enjolras and I will follow.”

Montparnasse considers it for a moment and then shrugs. “Suit yourself. Although how you can face the prospect of some more alone time with my brother after the pounding he’s probably put you through today I have no idea.”

They walk off again, Floreal, Montparnasse and Courfeyrac, their backs receding out of the chalet’s pool of light and becoming absorbed into the black. Grantaire turns towards the door, because he can at least pretend to himself that he _is_ cold, that he _does_ need another jumper, instead of acknowledging the truth of the fact that the thought of alone time with Enjolras, even after the hours of it today, is an appealing prospect.

Once he’s taken the stairs two at a time and rifled through the absolute swamp of clothes that seems to have magically appeared on his and Montparnasse’s floor, extracting a jumper that might belong to him, and equally might belong to Montparnasse, Grantaire finds himself awkwardly lurking outside the door to Enjolras’s room. Just as he raises a hand to knock, the door opens, and Enjolras is standing in the doorway. He awkwardly lowers his hand, and stuffs it in his pocket for want of something better to do with it.

“I needed a jumper, so I said I’d wait for you,” he says lamely.

Enjolras still looks a little bit puzzled, but the slight crease between his eyes smooths out. “Thanks, that’s, um, nice of you.” There’s a pause. “I was just doing my hair.” Grantaire’s eyes flit up to Enjolras’s hair, which has apparently been _blowdried,_ because it’s even more volumous and curly than usual. Grantaire wants to touch it, and it is with some restraint that he prevents himself.

They stand, facing each other in silence for a bit, before Enjolras makes a gesture with his arm.

“Shall we?” he says, and Grantaire jumps aside.

By the time that they’re on their way to the centre of town, the cold hits Grantaire fully. Although he had thought to get an extra jumper, somehow his gloves have got lost. Even ramming his hands into his pockets don’t improve the situation much, and after about five minutes, he feels as though his fingers are going to drop off and he’ll never be able to sketch again.

Enjolras doesn’t fail to notice this farce, and finally turns to Grantaire with his eyebrows raised. “Do you want a glove?”

“What?” Grantaire blurts awkwardly, and then mentally kicks himself. “I mean, don’t you need two gloves?”

Enjolras sighs, and pulls off one glove, offering it to Grantaire. When Grantaire holds it, looking at it stupidly, Enjolras gestures for him to put it on. Once it’s on (and Grantaire’s fingers start to regain feeling instantly), Enjolras takes Grantaire’s other, bare hand in his own, and twines their fingers together.

Grantaire looks down at where their hands are joined, and then back at Enjolras. Something in his eyes must have got through to Enjolras, because he laughs slightly nervously. “It’s the best way to keep both our hands warm.”

Grantaire doesn’t complain, and they walk on in silence, through the empty and snow-silver streets. Enjolras’s hand is dry and a little bit chapped and warm. Grantaire has never been a big hand-holder, but somehow this tiny act feels impossibly tender, impossibly intimate. Enjolras’s thumb is brushing over the back of his hand. Inside his jacket, Grantaire’s heart is beating like a jackhammer.

 

The rest of the night passes in a blur of technicoloured shots and bad European pop music DJ’d by the local ski-instructor. Grantaire can vaguely remember detaching his hand from Enjolras’s as they approached the bar, and then not much after that. In fact, the rest of the week seems to slip by with similar speed, the days blurring into one another, full of vodka and snow and sexual tension. After doing the toboggan run together, Grantaire is deemed good enough to join Montparnasse and Courfeyrac, and the four of them spend hours making their way down increasingly more difficult slopes. Floreal joins them every night as they explore the town, and although she and Montparnasse don’t actually kiss, the chemistry between them is palpable.

The low-point of the holiday comes the day before New Year’s Eve. Grantaire sleeps in until twelve, only to wake and find the house mostly deserted, apart from Montparnasse, who is sitting up reading on the other side of the double bed.

“I always forget how shit your hair looks in the morning,” Montparnasse comments idly as he turns a page. Grantaire groans into the pillow and then undergoes a series of both extremely painful and deliriously good stretches.

“Good morning to you too, dickhead” he mutters at Montparnasse, snuggling back down into the duvet until only the top of his ridiculous hair is visible. Montparnasse obviously gives up on reading whatever book he’s attempting, because he casts it aside and also burrows down into the duvet to face Grantaire.

“So, Courfeyrac had some bad news – I think his granny isn’t well? – anyway, he’s flying back home after lunch.”

Grantaire feels really shit for Courfeyrac, whom he has actively grown to like more and more this holiday, for his easy smile and easy jokes, but he also feels a little bit – well, a little bit glad. Things have moved from friendly to actively _good_ between he and Enjolras. Enjolras is difficult to read in many ways, because he seems to swing between being easily affectionate and extremely distant, but he seems actually enthusiastic about spending time with Grantaire. There’s a thought lurking in the back of Grantaire’s mind that he’s only been able to half crush; it’s a thought that is hazy and vague, but which undeniably contains traces of New Year’s Eve, and of alcohol, and of midnight kisses. Now that Courfeyrac isn’t going to be around for that countdown, maybe the thought might have a smidgen of a chance at becoming reality.

When Grantaire comes back to himself, he realises Montparnasse is staring at him strangely.

“What’s going on, man? You’ve been acting really weirdly over the last few days.”

Grantaire makes a face and brings the duvet even further up, over his head. “I’m just tired… I haven’t done this much exercise in _years._ ”

Montparnasse is still giving him side-eye, but he obviously decides not to pursue the matter. “Right. Well, I’ve got a crick in my neck, and you’re the person to work it out.” He rolls over and proffers the back of his neck, one curl of a tattoo just snaking its way up one side, to Grantaire. Grantaire sighs, and gets to work.

 

The New Year explodes into life in a shower of confetti and the most expensive champagne Grantaire has ever drunk. The entire household – sans Courfeyrac – dresses up and gathers downstairs to cheer and woop as the village sends up hundreds of fireworks to explode above the mountainous peaks. As the clock strikes twelve, Grantaire’s eye catches on Montparnasse and Floreal, who are standing closer together than is perhaps strictly necessary. All thoughts of what might be going on there, however, are whipped aside when he feels a hand land on his own shoulder, burning warm even through a shirt and a suit jacket. Grantaire turns and sees – sees Enjolras, just at his elbow. His face is thrown into flickering shadow by the candles and the firelight, his cheekbones and his roman nose illuminated in a halo of soft light. Enjolras smiles, and leans in and Grantaire’s breath catches in his throat. But Enjolras just kisses his cheek, the briefest of brushes, and leans back out.

“Happy New Year, Grantaire” Enjolras tells him, raising his glass.

Grantaire clinks his own glass against the one offered and tries not to feel too bitter. “Happy New Year, Enjolras.”

Behind him, Montparnasse and Floreal start kissing, loudly.

He’s pleased for them, and everything, but that pleasure slowly starts to slip away when Montparnasse breaks off about twenty minutes later and drags Grantaire into a broom cupboard.

“Look, babe,” Montparnasse tells him, resting one slightly sticky hand on Grantaire’s shoulder and looking desperately into his eyes. “If I don’t get laid tonight, I will spontaneously combust.” Grantaire knows where this is going. “Please, _please,_ let me have the room.”

Montparnasse’s eyes are round, and dilated with alcohol. His face is flushed and his mouth is smeared with lipstick and he’s breathing slightly heavily. Any fight that Grantaire might have had in him dissipates in an instant.

“Fine,” he sighs heavily. “Just let me get, like, a blanket and my toothbrush.”

He trudges upstairs, away from the sounds of revelry, to their room – which still looks like an explosion of charity shops and haute-couture – and rummages in the duvet for his nightwear, only coming up with a slightly grubby pair of checked bottoms that might have started life as Grantaire’s, or Montparnasse’s, or neither. He can’t face looking in the heap of garments on the floor for a t-shirt, so he grabs his toothbrush from the sink in the bathroom, and heads back downstairs. On the ground floor, everything is strangely quiet. People have dissipated with alarming speed, because the only two left are Montparnasse and Floreal, and they quickly hurry up the stairs clutching at each other’s hands the moment Grantaire appears.

He tests each of the sofas, trying to work out which is the less studded, and therefore the more comfortable, and then grabs a blanket which has been thrown over a footstool and tries to snuggle down under it. The only problem is that everything in Montparnasse’s family is done for style, not substance, and whilst the blanket might _look_ chic, it’s not actually very useful as a warming device. What’s more, the fire is burning alarmingly low without anyone competent to stoke it, and the temperature in the room drops drastically. Grantaire is shivering, and actively thinking about putting his dress-shirt back _on_ to sleep in, when there’s a creak in the corner of the room.

He sits up at once and sees – sees Enjolras, standing framed in the doorway, holding a glass of water.

“I came down for a drink,” Enjolras says with a shrug, and then peers more closely at Grantaire. “You’re not – my brother hasn’t made you _sleep_ down here, has he?”

Grantaire makes a face. “It’s less that he made me, and more that I was forcibly volunteered for the job. It’s fine though – I don’t mind.”

Enjolras is coming closer across the room, and Grantaire can’t help but notice that he’s still wearing the grey trackies – his grey trackies.

“Look, don’t be an idiot. You can’t sleep in here. The room isn’t heated at night and the temperature will drop like a stone any second,” he says reasonably. Grantaire tries not to shiver.

“I’m fine, really. I don’t _mind._ ” He repeats, pulling the blanket further up his body. It suddenly becomes of momentous import that his nipples, at least, are covered.

“You’re not going to be fucking fine, Grantaire, when you’re frozen to death. Just–” Enjolras sighs and rakes a hand through his hair, which is down and curling across his shoulders, “–look you can sleep in my bed.”

“I’m _fine,”_ Grantaire is half way through repeating when he realises what Enjolras has said; moreover, Enjolras has clearly decided to take no for an answer, and is walking away, gesturing at Grantaire to follow. Which he does. Because he is weak. And in love. With Enjolras.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay I UPDATED isn't that amazing. It's a bit longer than usual (like 10 words) to make up for time; university is mad mad mad so soz guys 
> 
> kudos are like the compliments that my tutor doesn't give me on my essays :(
> 
> find me on [tumblr](http://one-heart-one-soul.tumblr.com/html/)


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, Montparnasse,” he replies coldly, “Literally nothing has happened between me and Grantaire. It’s not my fault if he keeps tagging around me like a puppy in a polo-neck, is it? To be honest, I find him pretty fucking annoying. I only said he could sleep in my bed because I didn’t want him to die.”

“Come in,” Enjolras tells him over one perfectly formed shoulder, gesturing with his hand. Still Grantaire lurks by the door, unwilling to cross the invisible line between the corridor and Enjolras’s bedroom (however temporary a bedroom it might be).

The man in question sits down on the edge of the bed with a sigh and a slump of shoulders, and begins to take off his socks. It’s only when Grantaire makes no visible effort to move that Enjolras looks back up at him. “Come in, Grantaire – I’m not going to bite.”

With an effort, Grantaire steps across the threshold. With every extra step he takes, across the airy room with its tasteful low-lit lamps which just so _happen_ to give the place a romantic half-light that makes Enjolras’s flaxen hair glow, he can feel his heart thudding louder and louder. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. By the time that he too reaches the bed, it’s become a whole symphony, the blood rushing through his ears, the tingling in his back, and below it all, the heartbeat. Ba-dum, ba-dum, badum. Perhaps this is how Jason Derulo feels, Grantaire can’t help but think wryly.

“Um, so, if you want to take that side, I’ll take the other,” Enjolras is saying, and he looks more awkward than confident by now. It’s still a revelation for Grantaire to see Enjolras looking tentative or uncertain. Even though, throughout the maelstrom of misunderstandings and mix ups that has been their acquaintance (their friendship) so far there have been plenty of moments of awkwardness and vulnerability, Grantaire’s perpetual picture of Enjolras is someone ignited in righteous fury, burning certainty, blazing conviction.

Grantaire nods, and looks down at the blanket he stole from the sitting room, still slung over his chest. He reluctantly lets it fall, swallowing as his chest and stomach appear to Enjolras for the first time. Grantaire knows that he’s painfully thin, that his ribcage juts and his stomach is hollow and his hipbones are sharp arrowheads ready to strike. It’s just that it doesn’t get any easier, this skeletal-body bullshit, especially not when you’re surrounded by the litheness that the twins seem to magically possess. He’s pasty and white, and there is nothing Grantaire would like more right now than a t-shirt to cover the vast expanse of his body, so that he doesn’t have to look at it any more. Asking, though, would draw attention to his nakedness, and that’s the last thing Grantaire wants, so he sucks it up, and edges awkwardly under the covers that Enjolras has drawn back for him.

On the other side of the room, Enjolras is padding over to the en-suite bathroom, oblivious to Grantaire’s inner wrangling. Grantaire hears the light click on, hears the tap turn on – hears the brushing of teeth, and the tap turning off. Of course Enjolras remembers to save water whilst performing his routines. Then the light pings off again, and Enjolras’s footsteps are coming back over. The mattress squeaks and gives as Enjolras gets into the other side of bed. Grantaire doesn’t trust himself to look, just stares straight ahead at the wall.

There’s silence.

Grantaire waits. He knows Enjolras doesn’t like silence.

“I’m sorry if I bullied you into this – I didn’t mean to, um, invalidate your consent or anything.” Sure enough, Enjolras speaks.

“It’s okay – you were right. It was cold downstairs.” Still Grantaire watches the wall.

“Yeah. It gets really fucking cold in this house. I didn’t want you to freeze,” Enjolras says, and it sounds almost like he’s convincing himself, not Grantaire.

“Thank you,” Grantaire tells him – and then, despite himself, yawns. Even though every nerve of his is on fire, he’s _exhausted_ from all the exercise and the alcohol.

 Enjolras jumps on this, hurriedly gesturing to the light. “You’re tired. We should sleep.”

“Good night Enjolras.” Grantaire edges down the bed and turns over, facing the wall.

The light clicks out. “Good night Grantaire.”

 

Grantaire finds himself breathing in time with Enjolras, long, slow, heavy breaths that feel like waves lapping over the shore. In, out, in, out. Just across the bed is the boy that haunts his dreams. The distance feels like two millimetres; the distance feels like the Pacific Ocean. In, out, in, out. Grantaire wants to see him, loose-limbed in sleep, hands curled softly, hair a sprawling mass. He wants to turn over. Wants to, but doesn’t. In, out, in, out. Slowly, slowly, Grantaire falls asleep.

                                                

The light is the thing that wakes him, because they haven’t bothered to shut the curtains. The space behind Grantaire’s eyelids gets brighter and brighter, but he refuses to open his eyes. The sense of his limbs come back to him slowly – his toes, way down the bed, his back, cold because he hasn’t got a t-shirt. His knees, which are inter-tangled with another’s knees. His hands, which are intertangled with another’s hands. Grantaire cracks open one eye to see Enjolras’s mass of blonde hair only inches away on the pillow. In the middle of the night, they have gravitated together, and now they’re enmeshed, a rubix cube impossible to unlock. He feels one of Enjolras’s hands resting heavy on his bare hip, feels a foot pressed against the back of his calf. It seems like a miracle, and moving would be heresy. So Grantaire lies perfectly still, and closes his eyes, enjoying the points of human contact, enjoying the way that Enjolras’s leg hair brushes against his own.

When he opens his eyes again, it’s to see Enjolras looking directly into his own. The expression on his face is perfectly serious, not a hint of a smile. Neither of them move. Enjolras looks very deliberately down at Grantaire’s lips, and then back up to his eyes, and suddenly Grantaire has never felt more wide awake. He inches his head, a fraction of a centimetre, across the pillow, and Enjolras follows him, his hair dragging in his wake, a blonde beach on a sea of white. He inches a fraction more, and suddenly he can feel Enjolras’s breath. A fraction more, and their lips are just brushing, just next to each other. He still hasn’t moved his hands. There’s the tiniest kiss, the tiniest pressure, and then Enjolras moves forwards.                 

It isn’t messy. It isn’t a surge of teeth and tongues, like Grantaire was expecting. It is quiet, and understated, the way their lips graze slowly over each other, tentative. It doesn’t have any of the confidence or passion that he has come to expect from Enjolras. This isn’t Enjolras at the head of a protest, a-flame and ignited. This is Enjolras, standing awkwardly in his room, begging for forgiveness. This is Enjolras, an inexperienced nineteen-year-old boy. Grantaire loves it. He moves one hand up from between them, rests it tentatively on Enjolras’s hair (because he’s still not sure what’s permitted) when–

“R!”

There’s a call up the stairs.

“ _R?”_ Montparnasse is shouting. “Grantaire?! Where the fuck are you?”

The pair of them freeze, waiting, listening, and then they hear the sound of feet pounding up the stairs. Grantaire leaps out of bed like he’s been scalded, moving faster than he’s ever moved before. He grabs a t-shirt, any t-shirt, lying on the ground, and then moves over towards the door, just as it opens, and admits Montparnasse.

‘Parnasse stands there, framed in the doorway, a frown playing on his face. He’s acquired a new collection of dark bruises around his neck over the course of the night.

“Sorry,” he says uncertainly, “I just was wondering where you were. I wanted to – um, R, I wanted to apologize for kicking you out of our room. I know it was a bit of a dick move…” Montparnasse’s eyes flit, very obviously, from Enjolras, who is still lying motionless in the bed, one side of which is empty, but obviously slept in, to Grantaire, standing awkwardly in a borrowed t-shirt and boxers. He seems to be putting two-and-two together.

“It was freezing downstairs!” Grantaire blurts. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Enjolras remaining as still as a statue. “Um, it was freezing downstairs, I thought I was going to die. Your brother said I could have the other side of the bed – stop me from becoming a block of ice.”

Montparnasse nods, passes a hand up the back of his head. “Yeah, I’m sorry, that’s actually – that’s really nice of you, Enjolras. Thanks.”

“Yeah, thanks, Enjolras,” Grantaire parrots. He has no idea why he’s being so weird about this – or maybe he does. He still gets the impression that Montparnasse would not be overly enthused if his best mate started banging his twin brother. Enjolras’s story about the girl at school is still ringing in his ears, a cautionary tale if ever there were one.

“Let’s go get breakfast, R… I’ve got _so_ much to tell you,” Montparnasse tells him with a wink, and pulls at his arm. Grantaire follows, and doesn’t spare a look back at the boy, left alone in the sea of sheets.

 

He and Montparnasse spend the rest of the day in bed, too tired and hungover to go outside into the cold and ski. They stalk the Facebooks of people in their class, bitching about pictures of nights out and _horrible_ new jackets that are supposed to be stylish, and then watch nearly an entire season of RuPaul’s Drag Race – probably Montparnasse’s favourite show _ever._ Grantaire hears all about Montparnasse’s night with Floréal – sensational, apparently, full of transcendent moments of joy and whatnot – and in return says absolutely nothing about his night, or rather, his morning with Enjolras.

 He can’t quite articulate why,but the way he’s acting feels like a betrayal. He and Montparnasse tell each other everything (the lurid descriptions of that thing Floréal did with her tongue are testament to _that_ ) and keeping quiet about something so earthshaking feels like he’s transgressing the open, easy nature of their relationship. Similarly, kissing Montparnasse’s twin brother in his bed secretly on the last day of the ski-ing holiday Montparnasse has been nice enough to invite him on and _pay for_ feels like even more of a transgression. Either way, he can’t win, so he snuggles down and keeps fairly quiet.

When Enjolras comes in, and sits on the bed for about forty minutes, bringing tea and chatting casually to Montparnasse, he pretends to be asleep.

 

Fortunately, Grantaire isn’t left with too much time to brood/avoid Enjolras awkwardly, because the evening is filled with frantic packing. He and Montparnasse are still almost completely unable to distinguish between their belongings – they’ve swapped and swapped again so many times that even jackets and shirts that Grantaire _knows_ he’s worn still might not be his. They circumvent this problem by splitting everything down the middle. Problems only arise when Montparnasse takes issue with his way of packing. ‘Parnasse is a weird combination of neat-freakery and utter carelessness. He’ll put down numerous coffee cups on expensive mahogany side tables at home, leaving countless marks, but god forbid anyone fold a shirt imprecisely. Once something’s dirty, Grantaire likes to bundle it up and shove it in the bad: Montparnasse has to fold it, with one hanger and two pieces of paper. After catching Montparnasse sighing and glaring at him over the packing of a cashmere polo-neck (which Grantaire swears couldn’t crumple, even if he wanted it to), he admits defeat, and lets Montparnasse do the rest.

They’re up the next morning at the crack of dawn, the whole house dragging bags downstairs in the 3am darkness. There’s an awkward moment when Montparnasse pads off to Floréal’s bedroom to wish her goodbye – and Grantaire suspects that it’s only a temporary goodbye, from the way M seems to rhapsodise about her – and he and Enjolras are left alone in the hall. Grantaire starts off determined to wait it out, not to break and say anything, but after thirty seconds of absolute silence he caves and practically sprints back upstairs, claiming that he’s left his earphones behind.

The car ride to the airport is uneventful, as everyone is too sleepy to have much conversation, and the long journey through security is similarly so – only broken by Montparnasse insisting that they have to go and check out the new designer shopping section, even if just to laugh at it.

No, the real event happens when they’re ensconced on the plane. Grantaire honestly doesn’t want to sit next to Enjolras again, because he’s scared that his body will remember the last time they were in close proximity and he’ll get massively hard. He therefore hangs back when they’re boarding the plane, and ends up being given a lone seat. Montparnasse gives him a mournful look, but he can’t be bothered to make a fuss and have it moved, so he sits down alone. The journey is still petrifying, perhaps even more-so without an audiobook to soothe his worried nerves, but Grantaire does his best to lie back in his seat and doze. After about forty minutes, though, his bladder is full to bursting point. He doesn’t want to have to _get up_ whilst the plane is in motion, but after sitting through another five minutes of uncomfortable leg crossing and jiggling, he accepts that it is an inevitability.

The cabin is almost completely pitch black apart from a few guiding lights, as the flight is in night mode, so Grantaire moves very slowly down the aisle. He almost trips on someone’s bag, left lying in the middle of his path, and then stops when he hears his name being spoken very quietly behind him.

“What I don’t get, Enjolras,” Montparnasse is saying under his breath to the dark shape in the seat next to him, “is why you keep acting so weirdly around Grantaire.” He pauses, but when there’s no reply, he continues: “What the fuck happened between you two?”

Grantaire’s bladder is still unbelievably full, and all of his common sense and social mores are telling him to leave and find the loo – but he just can’t. On some essential level, he needs to hear the rest of what they’re saying.

“What do you mean, what happened between us?” Enjolras finally says, his voice almost unnaturally even.

Montparnasse makes a noise of frustration. “Well something has clearly gone down, because one second you seem like you’re best friends, and the next you’re avoiding each other. For fuck’s sake, just _tell me._ ”

On one level, the reasonable level, Grantaire is hoping Enjolras will brush it all off. On a more essential level, though, he wants to hear the other boy say it – admit that they kissed, that they kissed for the _second_ time, that something, weird and undefinable as it is, is happening between them. What Grantaire isn’t prepared for, though, is what Enjolras actually says.

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, Montparnasse,” he replies coldly, “Literally nothing has happened between me and Grantaire. It’s not my fault if he keeps tagging around me like a puppy in a polo-neck, is it? To be honest, I find him pretty fucking annoying. I only said he could sleep in my bed because I didn’t want him to _die.”_

Grantaire has to bite his tongue to stop him sucking in his breath loudly. His body immediately breaks out in a cold sweat, and he decides he wants to be a million miles away from here. He staggers down the aisle, towards the loos, nearly falling into someone’s lap in his haste to get away.

Behind him, Montparnasse pauses. “I see,” he says, at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm SORRY 
> 
> I know I am the most useless of them all: my only defence is that uni work is manic, christmas is more manic, plus I am directing a play!!
> 
> This is a super short chapter, so barely deserving of your love... but kudos and reviews make living in this freezing icebox of a house in british december more bearable.
> 
> Come and say hi on [tumblrl](http://one-heart-one-soul.tumblr.com)


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjolras looks up at him pleadingly. “I’ve never actually properly dated someone before, or even kissed someone I actually know. And I keep freaking out about how to behave. You and Montparnasse are so close, and you’re both,” he rubs a hand against the back of his head. “I actually find you quite intimidating. You’re so cool.” 
> 
> Despite himself, Grantaire laughs incredulously. “Cool? I’m not cool!” 
> 
> “You are though,” says Enjolras, and he sounds miserable. “You’re at this top art school and you always dress amazingly and you have all of these cool friends and you go out clubbing and take drugs and stuff and like, design the most incredible stuff, and I just feel,” he sighs, “I feel really geeky and gangly and out of place.”

Grantaire doesn’t have a lot of time to muse on Enjolras’s damning statement, because term starts the day after they get back from ski-ing, and his workload goes into overdrive. The deadline for the menswear formal collection is the end of the Easter term, when there will be a big catwalk show, but Grantaire has also been set a ten-thousand word essay for his compulsory ‘cultural studies’ module, and he knows that the sooner he gets the collection off the page and onto the mannequin, the better. Plus, there are deadlines to be met – photographs to be taken for the catalogue, models to be fitted for the catwalk show. He feels vaguely sick when he thinks about all of the expectation heaped upon him. This is his first big test at art school, and Grantaire is determined to prove himself.

Over the course of the first week back, his sleeping schedule goes haywire. Grantaire starts to spend more and more time in the studio, working later and later into the night cutting patterns and doing preliminary stitching. Montparnasse doesn’t complain about his reduced availability to hang out and get high, because he too is working almost round the clock, hunched over the sewing machines down the corridor until two in the morning. There’s an odd sort of camaraderie that has sprung up amongst the menswear students, a collective understanding that hadn’t existed before. The stress has clearly brought the group together, because Grantaire starts spending time with people he’s never really spoken to before, during three am cigarette breaks and frantic runs to the coffee shop. He finds he has more friends than ever before, including a number of the technicians, employed to oversee all of the heavy machinery in the various workshops. He spends one memorable afternoon helping a fellow student, Feuilly, and a technician, Ken, try and weave together an immensely complicated ruff that apparently forms an intrinsic part of Feuilly’s final piece.

On Thursday night, or rather, Friday morning, when Grantaire’s vision is blurring over his gun-metal grey silk, and he’s stabbed himself in the finger with his needle about fifty times, he hears the door to the workshop open very quietly.

A cup of coffee is plonked down next to him – just far enough away from the edge of the material to ensure that no spillages will happen and ruin his work – and Grantaire looks up to see Jehan perched on the edge of his desk, wearing a psychedelic long-sleeved leotard covered in space patterns, and a pair of black flared palazzo pants. Jehan quirks a ginger eyebrow at the coffee, and gives Grantaire a grin. “It’s black, triple shot.” Grantaire lunges for it greedily, and takes a moment to inhale the rush of steam that wafts out of the cup when he snaps off the plastic lid. Only after taking a long gulp, which burns his tongue but is blessedly warming, does he turn back to Jehan, who by now is comfortably ensconced on a rolling chair.

“You, Jehan, are a god.” Grantaire tells him, his face perfectly serious.

Jehan beams at him, his normally-serious face transforming into one of pure angelic delight. “People do tell me that on the reg, but it’s always nice to hear it coming from you, R,” he replies.

“Not that I’m not enjoying basking in your divine presence, and not that the gifts you bear aren’t _much_ appreciated,” Grantaire raises the cup in Jehan’s direction, “but what brings you down here at this hour?”

Leaning forward towards his handbag – and Jehan refuses to call it anything other than a handbag, because he doesn’t give a fuck about the supposed gender boundaries of accessories – Jehan gently brings out a brown box, square and quite flat, holding it with such reverence that Grantaire starts to have an inkling of what might be inside.

It’s the victor’s wreath that Jehan has made to accompany his designs, and it’s _so beautiful_ that Grantaire is petrified of picking it up. It’s silver, and each leaf has been delicately cut out and engraved and bent into shape, wired around a main band, and decorated with jet beads which have been polished to look like olives. The overall effect is magnificent, and it’s hard to believe that a first-year jewellery student could have conceived of the piece and made it himself over the last month or so.

Jehan is watching Grantaire’s face very seriously, because he takes his work very seriously, and Grantaire can only hope that his face is conveying something near the sheer fucking _awe_ that he is feeling right now. “Jehan, man,” he says, running one finger around the engraved leaves, “this is unbelievable. Like, it’s really fucking good.”

“So you like it then?” Jehan asks him, his eyes never leaving Grantaire’s.

“Like it? Of course I bloody like it, I love it!” Grantaire scrabbles for his final sketches, buried under a pile of tape measures and pin-cushions, and drags them out. “It’s gonna look amazing alongside the grey piece – I really like the monochromatic thing we’ve got going on.”

Jehan scrutinises his final sketches, the tone of the fabric that is draped over half the desk, and looks pleased. “Yeah, it definitely works, you’re right,” he tells Grantaire, his eyes returning lovingly to his own masterpiece. “I think, for the second piece – the white one – I’ll make a similar thing in gold. I like the idea of inversion.”

Grantaire nods enthusiastically and carefully places the wreath back inside its box.

“Do you have an idea for models yet?” Jehan is asking him, lazily spinning around on the chair. Grantaire tries not to watch him, because the sight of all of that colour whirling around is _definitely_ going to give him a headache. Instead he focuses on the cup of coffee as he replies.

“Well I’ve technically found one guy – he doesn’t go here, he’s at Oxbridge or some shit like that, but he said he’d do it a while ago. I dunno if he’s still up for it though, I’ll have to ask.” Inside, Grantaire blanches at the thought of contacting Enjolras and reminding him of his Christmas promise. It’s a conflict between the knowledge that Enjolras will look _perfect_ in the toga, the glint of his hair setting off the wreath, evoking the gymnasium and Athens and Demosthenes, speaking out for democracy, and the awkwardness of their current relationship. There has been no contact since the kiss and the aftermath of that, and Grantaire doesn’t relish the idea of sending Montparnasse’s twin an awkward Facebook message. On top of that, there’s the fact that he still hasn’t broken the subject of the modelling with Montparnasse, who will inevitably be simultaneously offended that he hasn’t been asked, and pissed off that Grantaire has been keeping the deal secret from him ‘till now.

Jehan, oblivious to the whirl of arguments going on inside Grantaire’s head, gets up with far more grace than anyone who has just been spinning around on a wheelie chair ought to have, and runs one slender, freckled hand through Grantaire’s slightly unwashed hair. “Well you better ask him soon – we need to have at least a few shots taken for the deadline next Thursday. And don’t forget, you’ll probably need two people, to make the whole look work.” He turns to the door, plait flicking around behind him. “Ciao, R.”

 

_Grantaire [00.56]: Hey man! Hope u’re okay and have had a good rest of holidays… just wondering if I could ask if u were still up 4 taking some photos for my collection? No worries if not!!!! Idk if ur back at uni yet, but if ur around it would be a real help. R x_

_Enjolras [3.00]: Hey. I mean I promised, + I still feel bad about the thing that happened, so yeah, I don’t mind doing it. When do you need me? I have a long holiday so won’t be going back to ox for another two or so weeks. Should I wash my hair or anything special? Enjolras._

_Grantaire [3.09]: Ah thats so kind of you thanks! No dont worry about it just come as u are, unwashed hair is actually better b/c it holds shape better. Is friday 2pm okay? Whatever works! R_

_Enjolras [12.00] See you then. Enjolras._

 

Three days later, Grantaire is waiting nervously outside the front of the building, rocking backwards and forwards in his Chelsea boots. One cigarette hangs from a slightly trembling, chapped hand. Personally, Grantaire thinks, he is quite impressed that he has managed to control the physical manifestation of his nerves to these few tics. He feels like he’s going to throw up any second, and if the January weather wasn’t so bitingly cold, he would definitely be sweating nervously. After what was, predictably, the _most_ awkward interchange of messages – Grantaire knewhe shouldn’t have put a kiss, that Enjolras wouldn’t send him one back – they are finally going to meet. He hasn’t been to bed in over twenty-four hours, has worked through the night to make sure that the first piece is finished in time for the photographing session today: a session that had to take place now _,_ because Montparnasse is on the other side of London, sourcing ethical python-skin. Jehan had dropped off the wreath at his desk this morning, finely polished and ready to go, with the promise that the second piece would be done for the end of the next week. Now Grantaire just has to keep his cool for a few more hours, before he can go for a pint or ten at the pub with some of the other menswear designers.

He looks down to stub out the butt of his cigarette with his heel, and that’s why he misses the approach of Enjolras. It’s only when he looks up that he spots the figure standing awkwardly in front of him, hands in his pockets, looking just about as nervous as Grantaire feels.

“Hi,” says Enjolras. His eyes have fixed on Grantaire’s left earlobe. Grantaire is hoping that he’s not repulsed by the gold hoop that he’s just had that ear pierced with.

“Hi,” says Grantaire. They stand in silence for a bit, and then when it’s clear that no easy conversation is going to pop up and fill the tension, Grantaire realises that he’s supposed to take charge. “Shall we go, then?” he asks, scuffing the ground with the side of one boot. It’s going to leave a mark on the boot, and they were bloody expensive, but the satisfaction of having something to do that isn’t just standing still makes it worth it.

“Yeah.” Enjolras says.

He leads Enjolras inside, into the cavernous interior of the Central St. Martin’s building. It’s new, converted from an old granary store, and he can’t help but feel a hint of pride at the place that he goes to university. Through the turnstiles, through crowds of students having loud and pretentious discussions about the importance of Dali in modern design, up flights of stairs and along corridors lined with workshops and studios and equipment. Grantaire keeps up a running commentary as he goes, determined not to lapse back into silence, telling his companion all about the different degrees, and all of the stereotypical people that he’s met in the last few months. Enjolras seems happy to remain quiet, looking around him as he follows Grantaire’s stride.

When they reach the studio which Grantaire has set up for the photoshoot, there’s another moment of awkwardness. Grantaire goes and stands next to the rail, where he’s hung up his design.

“I did tell you about it, right?” he asks Enjolras uneasily. “At that dinner party?”

Enjolras is hovering by the door, hands deep in his jacket pockets. “Yeah, you did. Something about classical lines?”

Grantaire laughs. “Yeah, classical lines, all that shit. It’s actually, um, based on the concept of Athenian democracy, and on the reduction of gender boundaries in clothing, so I think you might like it.” He gestures at the mass of silk. “If you don’t mind putting this on – I can leave whilst you get dressed, although there are some brooches and ties that I might have to do for you – then we can get to taking some photos?”

At the door, Enjolras wavers for one beat more, before walking over decisively. “Don’t be an idiot, you don’t have to leave,” he says, reaching for the hem of his jumper and pulling it over his head.

Because he is the most foolish person to live on this planet, Grantaire turns and faces the window of the studio, away from Enjolras’s nearly naked form. He reckons that it is perhaps more polite than ogling his back and quite possibly developing a massive erection in the process. What he had not reckoned on was the fact that he can still see the reflection of Enjolras’s body, currently stripping off its jeans with efficiency, in the window. Grantaire blushes a deep red, and it’s at this point that Feuilly, his new comrade, and Ken, the technician, choose to walk past outside in the corridor. Feuilly gives him a wide smile and a thumbs up, whilst Ken jerks his head at Enjolras and raises his eyebrows. Grantaire shrugs back, and focuses on making the traitorous blush disappear from his cheeks.

From behind him comes a dry cough. “I’m done.” Enjolras tells him, and there’s the sound of rustling silk.

Grantaire turns slowly around, and tries to remember how to breathe normally. Enjolras looks – the piece looks almost exactly how he had envisaged it, those months ago when he had started his preliminary sketches. Enjolras isn’t bulky, he isn’t even muscular per se, but he is lean and taught. His long limbs seem to go on for days, and swathed in the grey silk, he looks like a vision from the past. Grantaire is half expecting him to start declaiming ‘Oedipus Rex’.

Enjolras coughs again, nervously. “Does it look okay?” he asks. One arm is slung nervously over his body. It’s ruining the flow of the piece.

“Yeah,” Grantaire tells him, moving over to the rail and the table next to it. “Yeah, it looks, um – just how I imagined it. Yeah, this is good.” He picks up the box that contains Jehan’s masterpiece, and carefully lifts out the wreath. “This is the real showstopper, though. If you don’t mind,” with his free hand, Grantaire gestures rather wildly at Enjolras’s head, “I might need you to, er, crouch, so that I can adjust this.”

There’s an awkward moment where they try and configure how best for Grantaire to access his head. Somehow, Grantaire ends up with Enjolras on his knees in front of him, head level with his crotch. He desperately thinks of his cousin Darren, of pricking his fingers with needles, of the pile of unwashed clothes in his room back in halls, anything to keep himself under control as he winds his hands into Enjolras’s golden curls, and adjusts them into a glorious tumble. Finally, on top of the mane, he places Jehan’s wreath, and then steps away. “I think it’s done,” Grantaire says with a slightly strangled voice.

The problem is, that even though these are preliminary shots, and nowhere near the final thing, and even though Enjolras looks unspeakably perfect in the flesh, somehow the photos that Grantaire takes aren’t quite right. Enjolras is a PPE student, an academic type, more used to wearing sweatshirts and jeans than silk confections and haut couture. He stands awkwardly in front of the black background, as Grantaire repeatedly adjusts the lighting, and returns to the tripod in the middle of the room. After watching Grantaire shooting a few more pictures, and sighing after checking each one, Enjolras speaks.

“Do you want me to do anything different? I feel like a bit of an idiot just standing here.” He gestures self-consciously at himself. “I don’t know, do you need me to, um, pout or anything?”

Grantaire laughs shortly. “You can pout if you like. Just put one hand on your hip – if you can turn slightly to the side – no, the other side, that’s right, and just look straight at the camera.”

After another five minutes, in which only the snap-click-flash of the camera and the lights can be heard, the door behind Grantaire opens quietly. Grantaire turns to see Ken standing at the back of the room, his arms crossed.

“Hey man,” Ken says with an easy smile that lights up his face, “I just thought I’d come and see how you were getting on.”

“Fine, thanks,” Grantaire tells him. Ken raises an eyebrow.

“You’ve got a slightly harassed look, it doesn’t seem like it’s all fine.” He crosses over to the camera and presses the playback button, clicking through the shots with practiced ease. One hand comes to rest, heavy, on Grantaire’s shoulder as they put their heads together and look at the photos.

There’s a rustle behind Grantaire, and he’s reminded of Enjolras, still standing there awkwardly, all long limbs and lines and legs. “Sorry,” he says, although he’s not sure who he’s apologising to. “This is Enjolras – he’s Montparnasse’s twin brother.”

Ken looks up and flashes another grin, but one that doesn’t quite reach his dark eyes. “Crikey, you look nothing alike!”

“Nice to meet you too, um…” Enjolras trails off, giving Grantaire a questioning look. He hastens to introduce the pair.

“This is Ken, he’s a technician for the menswear department.”

Ken waves an airy hand. “A technician only for so long – design’s my real interest. I’m earning some money before I start the Menswear MA next year.”

Enjolras gives a slightly tense smile, his eyes fixed on the hand that is still resting on Grantaire’s shoulder. “That’s nice.”

“Nice is one way of putting it, I guess,” Ken gives Enjolras a slightly strange look and then turns back to Grantaire. “He looks good in it, but something isn’t quite right – maybe if you had two people, put less pressure on the centre of the image?”

As Grantaire absorbs this piece of advice, weighing up its merits, Ken turns to go. “Overall, it’s looking pretty good though,” he tells Grantaire. “It’s a solid piece of design, you should be proud.”

“Thanks, man,” Grantaire says vaguely as he turns back towards the camera, towards Enjolras.

By the door, though, Ken stops. “I know a group of us normally go to the pub tonight but I was wondering if you wanted to do something a bit different.” Grantaire looks up at him, surprised, and Ken hastens to continue, “I wanted to check out the new Mexican that’s opened a couple of streets away. I’ve heard it’s got some, um, pretty killer strawberry margaritas.”

Grantaire is floored by the question. There’s a long silence, as he struggles to find something to say, and Ken clearly panics. “I mean, if you’re busy or want to go to the pub with the others or whatever, that’s fine too.”

Behind him, Enjolras does that dry cough again, and Grantaire makes a snap decision. “That sounds great, I can never turn down a strawberry margarita. Text me when you want to go and I’ll meet you out the front.”

Ken gives him one last smile, and ducks out of the door. Grantaire returns to Enjolras. “Shall we have just a few more tries?” he asks.

 

Three strawberry margaritas and a huge plate of nachos in with Ken, and Grantaire is still not one hundred percent sure that he’s made the right call. That this is a date, a Date with a capital D, there is no question. Ken’s leg – which is clad in a pair of beautifully cut charcoal wool trousers – is pressing against his own under the table, and he keeps being flashed winsome looks from the other side of the nacho-strewn plate. The truth was that he had said yes partially just to piss Enjolras off – because Grantaire isn’t a saint, and he’s been fucked around by Enjolras, bitched about and literally _punched_ one time too many to make him behave with any sort of decency in return. He had secretly hoped that Enjolras would betray some sort of annoyance or jealousy or _something_ in reaction. His hopes had been disappointed, however, by Enjolras’s mask of indifference. He had just looked lightly bored, and taken a few more excruciatingly awkward photos before excusing himself to go and write an essay.

Back in the Mexican place, Ken is telling him about his upbringing: Hong Kong for most of his life, then to England to learn how to tailor in Saville Row. Five years as an apprentice – “Like Alexander McQueen,” Ken says enthusiastically – and then to Central St. Martins to work as a technician. Last autumn one of the fashion tutors had picked up his sketchbook which he had left out in the workshop, and had given him a place on the Design MA on the spot. Grantaire is secretly envious of that talent. It had been a long, hard slog to get his place on his course, interviews and exams and portfolio viewings and trial days. The ironic thing is that now he has achieved his heart’s desire, he often forgets to be grateful or even enthusiastic about what he’s doing at university. The late nights and growing nicotine addiction have managed to blur what was once a fizzing enjoyment of every single day spent in the design studios.

With a conscious effort, Grantaire wrenches his thoughts away from himself, and turns his attention back to Ken, casting around for something to say. “So, is your real name actually ‘Ken’, then?” he asks, taking another slurp of margarita.

Ken smiles. “No, not at all. I actually have a name from Hong Kong, but lots of people, when they come over from Asia to live in the U.K, adopt an English name. Honestly I don’t think I can face hearing my actual name mangled one more time.”

 “I think it’s probably a good idea then if you don’t tell me what it is. I’ve never been any good at languages, really,” Grantaire laughs. “I was never good at anything, much, at school, apart from art.”

“Me neither – which was a problem. It sounds like a cliché, but I literally have a proper tiger-mother. My older brother is super brainy, he’s actually working for Google now. He did an engineering degree, followed by a PhD in computer science.” Ken waves the waiter over and asks for another round of drinks before turning back to the conversation. “Meanwhile, my mind was all over the place at school – no good at maths or science or music really.”

They continue to chat for the next hour, and Grantaire finds himself increasingly warming to Ken, who is funny and enthusiastic and has a million-dollar smile. He’s handsome as well, very dark hair and hazel eyes and wonderfully expressive hands – even though those hands are covered, like Grantaire’s, with cuts and pinpricks and burns. Ken tells him about his upbringing in Hong Kong, and how much he misses proper Asian food – “none of this bright orange shit with chips that people eat in England” – and in return, Grantaire describes what it was like to grow up in a rural town in the middle of Essex – “every house, for miles and miles, is grey. Everything is grey. Even the people are grey. It’s unbelievably shit” – and how much he doesn’t miss the local accent.

It’s late by the time they stand-up to go, and Grantaire has been having such an entertaining time that it hasn’t occurred to him to panic about what will happen at the end of the date. Now, as they make their way outside into the biting cold of the January weather, his anxiety returns in full force. Even the buzz of alcohol through his veins doesn’t stop him from worrying about the awkward pause that will inevitably ensue.

He’s surprised, though, when Ken doesn’t hang back, but grabs Grantaire’s lapels and pulls him in for a kiss. Ken doesn’t, on the surface, seem like the most assertive type, but as his hand winds into Grantaire’s hair, he has to admit that his initial impression has not been that accurate. They’re the same height, and the kiss is – it’s pleasant. It’s slow and almost sweet, and Grantaire is sort-of enjoying it. When they break apart, he offers Ken a tentative smile, who beams back.

“Are you going back to the studios? I can come with you, if you like.” Ken tells him, pushing his arms back into his pockets.

Grantaire considers the offer, and then makes a decision. “Thanks, but I should really go home and get some sleep… I’m feeling pretty knackered.” He looks at Ken, who is looking a tiny bit disappointed. “Thanks though, I had a really fun evening. The strawberry margaritas were everything that you promised.”

Ken nods. “We should do it again, I had fun too. I’ll see you around, Grantaire.”

 

_Grantaire [11.59]: went on a date lol_

_Montparnasse [12.00]: OMG_

_Montparnasse [12.00]: WHO??????_

_Montparnasse [12.01]: R u sly bastard_

_Grantaire [12.05]: ken_

_Montparnasse [12.06]: the fit chinese technician?!!!???_

_Grantaire [12.10]: hes not chinese hes from hong kong_

_Grantaire [12.15]: but yeah lol_

_Montparnasse [12.20]: k come over 4 dinner tmrw and give me the goss…. love you_

_Grantaire [12.30]: see u then… (also can u do my hair its WAY too long)_

_Grantaire [12.30]: ly2 man xx_

Grantaire sleeps for fourteen hours, and then spends the rest of the late afternoon reading an Alexander McQueen biography in bed. By the time he reaches Montparnasse’s he feels loose and pliable and is in a very good mood. Even though he’s still not one hundred percent sure he likes Ken as anything more than a friend, it feels good to be wanted, without complications or twin brothers getting in the way. He and Montparnasse make pad thai and eat it at the table with Montparnasse’s mum. His dad is apparently on a business trip to Cannes. Enjolras is conspicuously absent too. After dinner, the pair of them head down to the coach house to Do Grantaire’s Hair.

Montparnasse runs a bath, and Grantaire gets into it, filling the water up with bubbles so that they nearly reach his chin. Montparnasse sits in his boxers on the ledge at the back of the bath, soaping Grantaire’s hair up and rinsing it very gently. Grantaire closes his eyes and lets himself be slowly lulled by the rhythm of Montparnasse’s hands in his hair and the drone of his voice, talking about the texts (and whatsapps and facebook messages) he has exchanged with Floréal since their ski trip. Montparnasse reaches over to the sink and grabs a pair of clippers, turning them on with a low buzz.

“Just to check – you just want the sides off, right?” he asks Grantaire, tipping his head back and talking to him upside down. “I don’t want any recriminations if I do the wrong thing.”

Grantaire lazily waves a soapy hand in his direction. “Yeah, take the sides and back off – leave the top long.” He had spent the last few weeks moulting hair all over his designs, and had come to the conclusion that it was time for a haircut. Although he had always liked his madly curly mop of hair, Grantaire had to concede that it had got slightly ridiculous.

Starting to run the clippers down the back of Grantaire’s skull in a methodical fashion, Montparnasse begins to talk. “So, tell me about your date. Ken, eh? He is pretty fit, in a kind-of small way.”

“I’m small,” Grantaire points out with indignation, letting his eyes close once more. “And it was a good date. I think.” He sloshes some of the water around before continuing. “I mean, I do think he’s quite fit and he’s really nice – apparently he apprenticed at Fletcher and Hawes on Saville Row before he came to CSM, so he knows his stuff. He might actually help you with some of your tailoring if you asked him nicely.”

Montparnasse sniffs. “I don’t need any help, thanks, my tailoring is impeccable. Give me more juicy deets – when did he ask you, what did you do?”

“He asked me,” Grantaire stalls, remembering Enjolras, “he asked me when I was doing some preliminary shots. We went to the Mexican place – you know, the one with the margaritas Éponine always goes on about.”

Montparnasse’s momentarily stiffen at the sound of Éponine’s name is so slight now that Grantaire barely notices it, and continues. “And we just chatted, really.”

“And did you fuck?” Montparnasse asks slyly.

Grantaire feels a cold breeze across his chest and shivers slightly. “No, we didn’t!” There’s a sniff from Montparnasse, and he relents. “He did kiss me though.”

Montparnasse flicks the clippers off smartly and hops off the back of the bath. “And will there be a second date – oh, hello Enjolras.”

Grantaire’s eyes snap open. The open doorway frames Enjolras’s lithe form, who is leaning against it quite casually, still wearing a coat. His face is inscrutable. Grantaire flushes a bright red and looks down to check that the bubbles are still covering his modesty – thankfully they are. Grantaire does not miss the way that Enjolras’s eyes follow his own, to the bubbles, and then look quickly away.

“Hey, Montparnasse. Grantaire.” Enjolras says easily, nodding at them. “I’m gripped – _is_ there going to be a second date?”

Montparnasse actually laughs, the traitor. Still flushing, Grantaire wants to sink lower into the bath and disappear forever. “Maybe,” he concedes, “quite possibly. Now can you both leave? My water is getting cold.” Montparnasse’s laugher follows him out, and the door slams, leaving Grantaire cold, bubbly and alone.

 

Later that night, Grantaire leaves a sleeping Montparnasse in bed and pads through the corridor back to the bathroom, to grab a glass of water. It’s quite cold outside the confines of the bed, and as Grantaire is only wearing a pair of boxers and a dressing gown, he can’t help but shiver. Just as he turns the corner, however, he actively jumps when out of the dark comes something strong, which slams him up against the wall. He hits his head and is dazed for quite a few seconds, before he tunes back into reality.

Reality is Enjolras, pushing his shoulders firmly against the wall and muttering furiously into his face. “There will be no second date with this Ken guy, promise?”

Grantaire tries to massage the lump on his head, but it’s difficult, because Enjolras has his hands pinned. “Why?” he asks. He’s aiming for defiant in his tone of voice, but it mostly just comes out confused.

“Because – because,” Enjolras looks like he’s struggling with something. His normally controlled face is twisted with effort. “Because you’re mine,” he finishes triumphantly, and he kisses Grantaire.

This kiss is exactly what Grantaire was expecting, back when they kissed in Switzerland. It’s passionate and aggressive, and their teeth definitely clang together more than once. It reminds Grantaire irresistibly of the first time they kissed, back in December, in this very same corridor.  
With an effort - a gargantuan effort, because literally _every single molecule_ of Grantaire’s bodyis crying for more, more, more – he pulls away, and thunks his head for the second time against the wall. Tomorrow there will be a bruise. He notices, absently, that Enjolras is once more wearing the tracksuit bottoms that belong to Grantaire, the ones he left here before Christmas.

“You’re still wearing the tracksuit bottoms that belong to me.” Grantaire points out. Enjolras shrugs, and all at once, Grantaire is incensed.

“Look, Enjolras, I don’t really get what your deal is,” he tells him, trying to push Enjolras away. Sadly Grantaire has next to no muscle, so it doesn’t really work.

Enjolras lets his arms fall to his sides, but still crowds Grantaire against the wall. A faint frown appears between his two perfectly-sculpted blonde eyebrows. “What my… deal is?” he asks.

“Yeah, what your problem is.” Grantaire folds his arms defensively across his chest. “One second you punch me, then you realise you’ve made a crashing mistake, then you turn up in my room begging for forgiveness, then you’re a dick to me for half a week ski-ing, and then suddenly we’re all buddy-buddy. You invite me into your bed, you _kiss_ me on New Year’s Day, and then next second I know you’re on the flight home, telling Montparnasse that I’m ‘fucking annoying’ and that I tag around you like a ‘puppy in a polo neck’.” Grantaire snorts, because it’s better than crying, which is actually what he feels like doing. “You beg me to let you make it up to me, so I ask you to model for me – and then you’re back to being totally cold or whatever. A nice guy actually seems to like me and asks me out on a date – which you seemed fucking _fine_ with when we were back in the studio, by the way – and then you get all weirdly possessive and slam me up against the wall. What is your _problem?_ ” Grantaire finishes, his chest heaving.

Enjolras looks lightly stricken. “Okay, I know I’ve been a bit of a dick – and please don’t get angry – but can you not shout? I really don’t want Montparnasse to come out here and find us.”

Grantaire glares at him and pushes past him into the bathroom. He’s hoping that Enjolras will piss off to his bedroom and leave him alone, but Enjolras follows him into the room and awkwardly perches on the top of the loo. Even in the harsh fluorescent top-light, Enjolras’s golden hair still sparkles and shines.

“I’ve been… struggling with you, I guess,” Enjolras tells him, looking at the floor. “I did genuinely think you were dating Montparnasse, and then I found out you weren’t and I got quite excited. And then I remembered that even if you and M weren’t, you know, banging, you’re still his best friend and he’d still be angry if I muscled in and, um, nicked you or something.”

Grantaire rolls his eyes. “So you’ve said.”

“But I keep forgetting that, and I just…” Enjolras looks up at him pleadingly. “I’ve never actually properly _dated_ someone before, or even kissed someone I actually know. And I keep freaking out about how to behave. You and Montparnasse are so close, and you’re both,” he rubs a hand against the back of his head. “I actually find you quite intimidating. You’re so _cool.”_

Despite himself, Grantaire laughs incredulously. “Cool? I’m not cool!”

“You are though,” says Enjolras, and he sounds miserable. “You’re at this top art school and you always dress amazingly and you have all of these cool friends and you go out clubbing and take drugs and stuff and like, design the most _incredible_ stuff, and I just feel,” he sighs, “I feel really geeky and gangly and out of place.”

“You feel out of place?” Grantaire raises his eyebrows, “Enjolras, you’re like – you and Montparnasse are super rich and you have all this stuff and you can ski and you know how to drink champagne. I’m just a bloke from a shitty town who has no money, who just hangs on your shirttails and pretends to fit in.”

Enjolras frowns. “Don’t say that, that’s not true.”

In return, Grantaire laughs bitterly. “I’m just repeating what you said – you literally said I tag around like a puppy. Pretty fucking harsh, Enjolras.”

Enjolras puts his head in his hands and groans. “I know I said it and I’m so, _so_ sorry. I just panicked – Montparnasse and I have been getting on so much better this holiday, and I think it might even be because of you – and I didn’t know what to say. I don’t mean it – I do, um, I actually really like you.” He says the last part to the floor. There’s a silence, and then he looks up. “I really like you, Grantaire.” Enjolras says softly.

Despite him, something in Grantaire twists. He literally cannot believe he’s here, in this bathroom with its harsh lighting and dripping tap, having this conversation, with this boy.

Enjolras is still talking. “I really like you, and that’s what’s making me act like such a dick. I keep thinking about you, and about New Year’s Eve and stuff. And I was so _jealous_ when that guy asked you out yesterday, but I didn’t want to look like an idiot by showing it.”

“I mean,” Grantaire laughs quietly, “You’ve done a pretty bad job of hiding it. You did literally just slam me up against a wall – I’m gonna have a lump for days.”

Very slowly, Enjolras stands up and walks over to Grantaire. Very slowly, he raises up a hand, and very slowly he winds it into Grantaire’s hair. He feels the lump, still blooming, and grimaces. “I’m sorry.”

Grantaire looks up, and sees their reflection in the mirror. His skinny frame, clad ridiculously in a fluffy white dressing gown, the shorn sides of his head shocking in their newness. Enjolras, shirtless, his grey trackies hanging obscenely off his hips, one hand in his hair, and an expression of such _tenderness_ that it startles Grantaire.

“If it helps,” Enjolras whispers, “I didn’t think I could like anything more than your old hair. But I think it’s even hotter like this.”

Something in Grantaire has been fraying for the duration of the conversation, breaking strand by strand by strand. He thinks it might be his resolve, his self-control, his self-respect. Either way, it’s gone. As though he’s approaching a horse that might startle any second, Enjolras brings his lips down to Grantaire’s. The kiss is impossibly sweet, so sweet and so tender that Grantaire can’t believe he ever thought that Ken’s might be even vaguely enjoyable.

“I really like you, Grantaire,” Enjolras says, for what must be the hundredth time.

Slowly, Grantaire nods. “I, um, I like you too,” he offers tentatively, before kissing Enjolras once more.

Tomorrow, tomorrow there will be a hundred questions and answers to be had. There will be the problem of Montparnasse – there will be the problem of the modelling – there will be the chance that Enjolras will undergo another radical personality change and continue to ignore Grantaire.

For now, though, Grantaire is happy, kissing this beautiful boy under a flickering fluorescent light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S HERE   
> IT'S 6414 WORDS  
> IT TOOK ME A VERY LONG TIME 
> 
> for realz though, sorry for being so slow on the update: I am @ uni and life is generally fairly hectic with this'n'that as I'm sure you know
> 
> I thought there were going to be 11 chapters... now I think there will probably be 14. Get excited for //plot twists//
> 
> kudos will make all of the holiday essays on shakespeare I haven't done magically complete themselves, and comments are even better
> 
> 4 more fun and games and photos and stuff, come and find me on [tumblr](http://one-heart-one-soul.tumblr.com)


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjolras laughs and moves over to stand next to the shelf. “Apple Sourz and Pina Colada – could you get more stereotypically gay?” He reaches out for the Sourz, and picks up the nearly full bottle. “I haven’t drunk this since I was fifteen.” He unscrews the cap and tilts the bottle up, drinking from its neck with reckless abandon. Grantaire in turn watches Enjolras’s neck, thrown back, sculpted and beautiful. Enjolras finishes drinking and offers the bottle to Grantaire, who takes it and, never breaking eye contact, throws it back and downs the rest of the content in one. 
> 
> He puts the bottle down and the next second, Enjolras’s lips are crashing onto his.

After the night at Montparnasse’s, things change for Grantaire. For one thing, Enjolras has managed to refrain from having another extreme personality swing and things… things seem to be going quite well, actually. The morning after the night before, Enjolras has already left the house for the day by the time that Grantaire and Montparnasse emerge for breakfast. When Grantaire picks up his portfolio bag from the hallway, however, he finds a note stuck just inside, written in a spiky script:

_I would give your trackies back but they’re too comfortable to relinquish. Coffee later/tomorrow? U have my number. E_

They go for coffee at a hipster fair-trade place that Enjolras clearly likes – even though a hand-ground cappuccino is £6, which is ridiculous even for London – and it’s relaxed and easy in a way that his interactions with Enjolras never have been before. Grantaire goes back to the studio with a huge beam on his face, and when his tutor asks him what has got him looking so chirpy, he mutters something about his collection coming together. Two days later, he and Enjolras go back to the Tate Modern to look at the Rothko paintings again, and this time they don’t argue. He tentatively takes Enjolras to some of the other galleries with his favourite artworks in, and Enjolras looks at them very seriously. When they’re on the top floor of the Tate, looking at the conceptual art, Grantaire gestures towards a small placard on the wall.

“I really love this piece,” he tells Enjolras seriously, “I love the way that it highlights the essential absurdity of the gallery system. Can a placard on the wall telling people not to touch the exhibits usurp the very exhibits themselves? Conceptual art really has the power to stretch our minds.”

Enjolras nods, and stares at the placard with intensity. “I guess,” he says slowly, “I guess it’s good to question the value of art.” Grantaire can’t take it anymore, and starts to laugh hysterically. Enjolras turns to look at him, and a scowl passes across his face.

“You dick,” he mutters, looking miffed, “it’s not a piece of art at all, is it? It’s just a fucking notice telling us not to touch the exhibits. I _knew_ conceptual art was a pile of bullshit.”

Grantaire beams at him. “You should have seen your face, though. ‘It’s good to question the value of art’, what an absolute classic.” He nudges Enjolras with his shoulder. “C’mon, I’ll show you some really good stuff downstairs.”

After they have had their fill of paint-splattered canvases and diamond-encrusted sharks, the pair of them walk down the Southbank just as the wintry January sun dips below the horizon. As they cross the bridge at Embankment, Enjolras’s hand tentatively brushes against Grantaire’s gloved one, and the next second, they’re holding hands. Just before they enter the tube station, Enjolras turns to look at Grantaire, smiling awkwardly. Grantaire just smiles back, suddenly shy.

“I’d like to kiss you, but it seems that I’ve been doing a lot of swooping in recently, and not a lot of asking,” Enjolras offers. It’s enough for Grantaire, who leans in and up, and presses his lips to Enjolras’s. The kiss is sweeter and gentler than any other they have shared so far. It is what their first kiss should have been like. Their cold noses brush against each other, and Grantaire lets go of Enjolras’s hand to rest his own against the other boy’s shoulder. They break apart, faces hidden in each other’s necks, huffing out clouds of condensation. The moment is awkward, cold, and utterly perfect.

 

If his time with Enjolras is close to perfect, however, there are still definite flaws in Grantaire’s life. The first is that despite Enjolras’s beauty, there is something wrong with the photos taken of him in Grantaire’s collection. Somehow, on camera, his beauty is too remote, too awkward, too stiff. Grantaire is reminded of the moment in _Gossip Girl_ where Blair’s modelling for her mother’s collection doesn’t quite work without Serena. He is pleased with his pieces, is confident that they will work well with Jehan’s wreaths, but Grantaire did not get to Central St. Martins on a scholarship from a shit school by merely being pleased with his designs. Although happy to be a shambles in so much of his life, smoking cigarettes, being underweight, losing money like a sieve, Grantaire refuses to hand in a substandard piece of work. _It is the curse of perfectionism,_ Grantaire thinks to himself one morning in the studio, when he stands surveying his pieces. _I’d rather do fuck all than do something mediocre._

The offer made by Celine from i-D magazine, who had said that she might be interested in featuring his work, hangs over Grantaire’s head. It is both a tantalising, sparkling offer, laden with opportunity, and also a death sentence. Grantaire knows that his ego – fragile at the best of times – will not be able to take submitting his work and having it rejected. He is caught in a state of design paralysis, back to his old ways of spending hours sitting at his desk, cruising the Mail Online and staring at the test shots of Enjolras in the garments, blank of ways to bring them up a notch to sheer brilliance rather than adequacy.

The other problem in the studios is the presence of Ken. At the end of his date with Ken, before the bathroom-incident with Enjolras, he had left it open and easy. Grantaire knows that after the kiss, it had seemed like he was up for another date. Now he knows that that won’t be on the cards, not now he has someone else so – someone so passionate, and firey, and beautiful. Because he is a little shit, a little cowardly _shit,_ Grantaire hides from Ken for three days. He avoids the workshops that Ken works in, and sneaks out of the other door for a fag break every time that he sees the technician approaching down the corridor. The huge converted grain warehouse that Central St. Martins is based in is a warren of corridors and studios, and it is fairly easy to hide in. One day, however, Grantaire isn’t quick enough. He comes out of the library, and bumps into Ken in the corridor.

“Grantaire!” Ken says, easy smile coming to his lips already. “You’ve been avoiding me.” It’s not a question. Grantaire’s guts clench. He hates _hates_ hates confrontation – hates it, except when he’s confronting, well, Enjolras.

“Hey man,” he says weakly, “I’ve been busy.”

Ken laughs wryly. “Yeah, sure you’ve been busy. I heard Sara saying that you haven’t made any progress on your project for the last three days.”

Grantaire looks down at his Nike trainers – noting that they have started to become scuffed and tattered with over-wear. “Yeah, I’m sorry man. Things have just, um, got quite weird with me.”

“Weird how?” Ken persists. “Look, if you don’t like me or whatever, just say. I’m an adult man, Grantaire. I can take rejection.”

“No, no, I do like you!” Grantaire protests weakly. “Look, it’s just that, uh, I didn’t say last time, but I’m actually having this kind of – kind of thing with this guy. And it’s all got a bit awkward.”

“This guy,” Ken repeats, head cocked to one side. Grantaire notes that his white shirt is perfectly ironed. “Does this guy happen to be the guy you were shooting in the studio last week? Montparnasse’s brother?”

Not wanting to meet his eyes, Grantaire nods. “Yeah, it might have something to do with him,” he says. Then a thought strikes him, and he looks up, meeting Ken’s eyes squarely. “I know I’ve been a dick, and that you don’t owe me anything at all, but I would really appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to Montparnasse. The situation is a bit sensitive.”

Nodding slowly, Ken gives him an appraising look. “You’re right I don’t owe you anything… but yeah, fine, I won’t say anything to Montparnasse. I have no desire to be a douchebag.”

A wave of shame sweeps over Grantaire, and he looks seriously at Ken. “Thanks man, I mean it. I’m really sorry for fucking you around. I’m just a massive coward.”

Ken laughs. “You’re not a coward, Grantaire, you’re just normal.” He holds out a hand for Grantaire to shake. “Friends? I’ll see you at the pub on Friday night with the others, right?”

Nodding gratefully, Grantaire takes Ken’s hand and shakes it. “Friends, and yeah of course – I’ll be there.”

“I’ll see you around, Grantaire” Ken turns to go, before looking back. “If you need any help with the project, you know where you can find me. And I hope things go well with the guy.”

As he watches Ken walk away, Grantaire can’t help but think that his friends are much nicer than he deserves.

Speaking of friends, there are flaws in his burgeoning relationship with Enjolras, too. Two great big flaws. The first is Montparnasse – because of course, even though the problems between Grantaire and Enjolras seem to have been resolved, at least temporarily, for now, to the issue of What To Tell Montparnasse is as existent as ever. Grantaire fucking _hates_ not telling Montparnasse things, because he loves him like a brother. Loves him more, even, than he loves his own real family. Montparnasse has been the first person ever who gets Grantaire, who accepts him for what he is without compromise or question. Montparnasse is generous, capricious, temperamental, but ruthlessly supportive. Montparnasse, Grantaire knows, is also vulnerable. He knows that telling Montparnasse that he is on the cusp of shagging the living daylights out of his twin brother will cause friction, resentment, and tension. But he also knows that not telling Montparnasse is worse. Because the other thing about his best friend is that Montparnasse is proud. If he finds out that Grantaire and Enjolras are emotionally-banging and haven’t informed him, he will be even more hurt.

 

Grantaire tries to point this out to Enjolras, one day, as they peruse a second-hand bookshop in Bloomsbury one afternoon. “You know Montparnasse will be fucked off if we don’t tell him. I think we’ve just gotta bite the bullet and tell him, you know, that we’re dating.”

Enjolras turns away from a huge copy of William Godwin’s _Political Justice,_ and looks at Grantaire with sparkling eyes. “Oh, are we dating?”

Feeling the bottom of his stomach dropping out, Grantaire scrambles to cover his footsteps. “Yeah, I mean, if we’re not it doesn’t matter – I just thought that, um…” he trails away when he sees that Enjolras is laughing at him. Enjolras slings one arm around his shoulder, easy, natural, like he’s been doing it for years rather than for a few weeks, and kisses Grantaire on the cheek.

“ _Obviously_ we’re dating. Or at least, I hope we are. You aren’t seeing that Ken guy still, are you?” he scrutinises Grantaire’s face, suddenly possessive.

“No, I’m not,” Grantaire tells him, “Cool your jets. Anyway, back to Montparnasse. I really think we should tell him, E.”

Enjolras sighs and turns back to the shelves. “I don’t want to keep him in the dark, I really don’t, but I also can’t fucking face telling him now. He’s got his collection, and I really don’t want to fuck that up. Also, I’m scared,” Enjolras admits, although it sounds like it costs him something to do so. “I mean it when I say that despite appearances, this Christmas has been the closest I’ve been to Montparnasse since we were children. It’s been so nice being back on good terms with him, and I don’t want to fuck that up for now.” He glances back up at Grantaire. “I’d rather leave it till I’m back at Oxford.”

And there’s the other thing, the other flaw in his time with Enjolras. It’s horribly limited. Grantaire has already been back at St Martins for weeks, and he knows that although the Oxford holidays are long, they can’t stretch on forever. His days spent sneaking around the bookshops and cafes and parks of London with Enjolras are running out.

“When do you go back, again?” he asks more casually than he feels, running his hands down the beautifully embroidered spines of the books.

“In a week and a bit,” Enjolras tells him. Grantaire is gratified to see that a shadow passes across his face as he realises how short that time is.

Right on cue, Grantaire’s phone buzzes in his pocket, once, twice, six times:

_Montparnasse [16.03]: w t f is w/ you right now WHERE R U_

_Montparnasse [16.03]: we are supposed to be going to Selfridges to look at the new collections???_

_Montparnasse [16.04]: u literally NEVER miss a shopping trip, Selfridges is ur MECCA_

_Montparnasse [16.05]: is it Ken??? Are u banging him u sneaky sausage_

_Montparnasse [16.05]: don’t try and hide things from me R u know i am the sneakiest supersleuth I will sleuth my way into finding out what ur up 2_

_Montparnasse [16.05]: sleuthy sleuthy slither slither sneaky sneaky_

“Fuck,” Grantaire exclaims, checking the time. “He’s right, I was supposed to meet him at Selfridges like forty five minutes ago.”

Enjolras pouts. “Do you have to go?”

He nods, picking up his coat from the floor and slinging it on. “I can’t cancel on him, I’ve already basically swapped the time he and I spend hanging out for you.” Grantaire sighs, reading back over the messages. “I have no idea what the fuck I’m gonna tell him. There’s no way he’s gonna buy that I’ve been at CSM all afternoon.”

Enjolras pulls at his lapels and places a quick kiss on his lips. “Look, I go back in a week, and your hand-in deadline is in two weeks. If you can hold out till then, I’ll tell him.” Grantaire must still look doubtful, because Enjolras pulls him back in for another kiss, deeper this time, despite the fact that they are literally in the middle of a bookshop. “It’ll be fine, I promise.”

Reluctantly pulling away, Grantaire nods and picks up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. “When am I seeing you next?” he asks, hoping and dreading the answer. He wants it to be soon, but doesn’t want to appear clingy.

Enjolras gives him a coy smile. “Tomorrow night? I could… come over to your halls?”

Grantaire nods numbly, rooted to the spot. Enjolras’s eyes flick appreciatively up and down his frame. “It’s a date. Now fuck off and go and meet my brother.”

When he finally gets to Selfridges, Montparnasse is pissed and wants answers, but Grantaire manages to mollify him by buying him a ridiculously expensive champagne-flavoured marshmallow lollipop. They cruise the menswear floor, looking appreciatively at the new collections, but Grantaire can barely concentrate. His mind is on what might happen tomorrow night when Enjolras comes to his.

 

The next evening rolls around both very quickly and excruciatingly slowly. Grantaire can barely wait, but is also absolutely petrified. He and Enjolras haven’t actually shagged yet. There has been intense snogging, hands everywhere and something that might be classed as mild frotting, but no actual out and out penile contact. Grantaire is not, like, the most experienced boy in the world when it comes to sex. His school days as the only openly out boy in his school – although he is convinced that there were others, hidden away – did not afford that many opportunities for sex. Before coming to university, he had had a few secret snogs and a furtive hand job with a boy on the football team who then denounced him as a faggot, and had actually once gone so far as to touch a girl’s vagina, before realising that it was the weirdest thing in the world and definitely _not_ something he is into. Since university there has been a bit more action, but never with someone he actually wanted to hold hands with and, you know, cuddle.

He desperately races around his room gathering up all the mounds of clothes that have made their way into every nook and cranny, and tries to shove them all in his pathetic excuse for a cupboard. Even though a good half of his wardrobe is at Montparnasse’s, and even though he doesn’t actually have that much spending money, Grantaire realises for the first time that he has a truly staggering number of clothes. He mentally resolves to stop spending his paltry allowance in every charity shop he comes across – how many pairs of loafers does one person need anyway? – before dismissing the issue as one to deal with later. There are more important things to think about right now.

Grantaire dives into the shower, wielding a razor, determined to shave everything off. A couple of cuts later, and he gives the thing up as a bad job. Better to go au naturelle instead. He dresses with less than his usual precision – he’s hoping the clothes will come off fairly soon anyway – and shoves on some tight black jeans and an old grey roll neck jumper. He is frantically checking his alcohol stores to see if he has anything vaguely appetizing to offer Enjolras, when the knock at the door comes.

Opening it, Grantaire finds Enjolras standing outside, wearing sinfully tight grey jeans, and a red plaid shirt that is open dangerously low. A backpack is slung over his shoulder. He stands aside and gestures Enjolras to go in first, following after him admiring the other boy’s perfectly clad bum.

“I don’t have that much to offer you,” Grantaire admits, returning to the shelf containing his paltry drink selection. “I had some really good whiskey, and some gin, but they got drunk at the pre-drinks on Saturday.” He consults the shelf. “So it’s between apple Sourz or this kind of weird pre-mixed Pina Colada thing I bought at Tesco’s,” he says apologetically.

Enjolras laughs and moves over to stand next to the shelf. “Apple Sourz and Pina Colada – could you get more stereotypically gay?” He reaches out for the Sourz, and picks up the nearly full bottle. “I haven’t drunk this since I was fifteen.” He unscrews the cap and tilts the bottle up, drinking from its neck with reckless abandon. Grantaire in turn watches Enjolras’s neck, thrown back, sculpted and beautiful. Enjolras finishes drinking and offers the bottle to Grantaire, who takes it and, never breaking eye contact, throws it back and downs the rest of the content in one.

He puts the bottle down and the next second, Enjolras’s lips are crashing onto his. Grantaire brings his hands up and hooks them into the belt loops and Enjolras’s waist, bringing him closer. They kiss filthily, Grantaire pressed up against the edge of the table by Enjolras’s long, lean form. He groans, and Enjolras licks into his mouth, before worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. Grantaire breaks away to nip at Enjolras’s earlobe, sucking it into his mouth and smoothing his tongue over it. Enjolras lets out a sinful noise and draws back, looking _wrecked._ “Bed?” he asks, drawing his nails down Grantaire’s back where they have slipped inside his shirt.

Grantaire nods and they head over to the bed, doing that awkward two person walk/stagger when  a couple refuse to let go of each other, even for a second. Enjolras’s knees hit the edge of the bed, and he lies back onto it, looking up at Grantaire with a smile playing around his lips. Grantaire needs no invitation, and straddles Enjolras, kissing him again before drawing back to start unbuttoning his shirt. Grantaire nibbles at the collarbone that has been driving him mad since before time began, and then finally leans back to admire Enjolras’s flat, lean torso, with just a dusting of golden hair over the velvety skin on his stomach.

Enjolras growls – and that is something that Grantaire will file away for later, Enjolras _growling_ with frustration at him – and pulls at his arms, dragging him back up to capture his lips again. He captures Grantaire’s earlobe – the one that has only recently been pierced – and sucks at it with an intensity that brings a jolt of pleasurepain straight to Grantaire’s stomach. Reluctantly releasing Grantaire’s earlobe, he tugs at Grantaire’s rollneck, pulling it off over his head. This is slightly less sexy than it might otherwise have been. Grantaire’s penchant for tight clothes proves to be a hindrance when the neck gets stuck halfway over his head. The same problem emerges when they both try and remove their jeans. Grantaire silently curses the trend of skinny jeans – something he would never ever otherwise do because flares are _sinful_ – as his feet get stuck. Eventually, and with some very unsexy wrangling, they are both in their boxers.

Enjolras pushes Grantaire down, and gives him a very serious look, before inching down the bed – the bed which is barely big enough to qualify as a single bed – and kneeling at the bottom. He runs trembling, reverent fingers, under the waistband of Grantaire’s boxers, and gives him a questioning look. Grantaire can’t manage words, just nods. Enjolras pulls the pants over Grantaire’s jutting hipbones, and off. He runs his fingers down Grantaire’s dick, just the lightest touch, and then bends his head to take Grantaire into his mouth. It is a little messy, teeth not quite shielded, but the wet heat of Enjolras’s mouth, the sight of him, of this gorgeous boy bent over Grantaire in such an obscene way, is sensational.

Grantaire can’t take it for very long, can feel the root of his release coiling in the depths of his stomach, and despite the desire to just roll with it, to come into Enjolras’s mouth, he manages to pant something out – “Enjolras, stop – I can’t hold it.”

Enjolras lets Grantaire’s dick slide out of his mouth with an obscene pop, and smiles up at Grantaire, his wet lips so red and spit slicked that Grantaire can’t help but slide one thumb into his mouth for Enjolras to suck. Enjolras obliges, fellating Grantaire’s thumb with such lascivious enthusiasm that Grantaire feels himself become, if possible, even harder. He pulls Enjolras back up toward him and kisses him with enthusiasm.

“You’re amazing,” he mutters reverentially, kissing Enjolras’s nose, his lips, his eyes and his beautiful golden hair. Enjolras smiles, and it’s a smile that is utterly beguiling.

“Will you fuck me?” Enjolras asks, and it’s all Grantaire can do to nod with fervent enthusiasm. He gently rolls Enjolras to the side and reaches over to his bedside cabinet, where he thinks there is a condom and some lube. Actually, Grantaire doesn’t think, Grantaire knows, because he had stocked his drawer up early in a fit of enthusiastic optimism. He coats his first finger with some lube and settles between Enjolras’s thighs, covered in the same downy blonde hair which is smattered across his abdomen. He makes eye contact with Enjolras’s, whose lips are swollen and red, and whose hair is even more rampant and wild than usual, and he circles one finger around his entrance, before pushing inside.

In a film, Grantaire finds himself thinking, oddly disconnected from the reality of the situation, this is the moment where Enjolras’s eyes would cloud over with lust, and he would start begging for more. In a film, Enjolras would writhe and plead and ask for two fingers, three fingers, and then finally for Grantaire to line himself up and sink into him. But this is not a film. Grantaire watches a slight spasm of pain pass across Enjolras’s face as he gently pushes his finger in and out, a pain that smoothes into discomfort, but doesn’t entirely dissipate. Enjolras is gripping the sheets, white knuckled, and although Grantaire would like to flatter himself that it’s out of ecstasy, he knows that the reality is somewhere far from that. He withdraws his hand and looks up at Enjolras, who is himself staring at the ceiling.

“Is everything okay?” Grantaire asks, and when there is no response, he bites his lips. “Sorry, I know I’m really not very good at this.”   

Enjolras lets out a breath, and then speaks in a very small voice. “No, no, it’s not you. It’s just that I haven’t really, you know, got that much experience and it’s more painful than I remembered…” His voice tails off, and Grantaire undergoes one of those miraculous refocusings of vision that he seems to constantly experience around Enjolras. The other boy switches from being confident sex god, leader of the masses, wanton and writhing and sucking Grantaire’s cock down in one, to an awkward teenage boy, in an unfamiliar room, nervous and unsure.

Grantaire scootches up the bed and wraps his arms around Enjolras, which is ridiculous really, because he is quite a bit shorter than his bedmate, and a whole lot skinnier. Enjolras seems to appreciate the gesture though, because he too entwines his arms around Grantaire and pulls the duvet over them. And this is nice, really, this is enough for Grantaire – it’s enough to be have his naked body pressed against Enjolras’s from foot to cheek, an indulgence he would never have dreamed of even two weeks ago.

“Enjolras, don’t worry – we don’t have to do _anything_ you don’t want to.” Grantaire tells the top of his head very firmly, and from somewhere down near his neck he feels Enjolras huff out a breath of hot air. His voice comes out muffled, filtering through the duvet.

“I don’t want you to think I’m a prick tease or anything,” Enjolras tells him. “I do, like, genuinely want you to fuck me. I just don’t think I can manage it right now.”

“That’s fine,” Grantaire tells him, and when Enjolras doesn’t respond, he pulls the other boy’s face up from under the duvet. “That’s _fine,_ ” Grantaire says to him firmly, looking him in the eyes. When Enjolras still doesn’t look convinced, Grantaire leans forward and kisses him very gently. When he pulls away, he continues – “The concept of a prick tease is absolute bullshit anyway. You’re allowed not to want to sleep with me, E. I haven’t had sex with anyone for like, four months – I think I can wait a few more.”

Enjolras nods slowly, and a small smile plays around his lips. “Four months?” he asks. “I can beat that, I haven’t slept with someone for five months.” He snuggles back into the pillow, his doubts mostly assuaged, and pulls Grantaire down with him. “Tell me about your sex history?” Enjolras asks, sounding casual. Grantaire knows by now that it is when Enjolras sounds casual that one needs to be wary.

“I will,” he promised, pressing a kiss to the bridge of Enjolras’s nose (and he marvels at that, at the fact that he can perform a gesture so intimate and carelessly affectionate and not get his head bitten off or called a wanker), “but only after I’ve rolled a cigarette.”

Grantaire jumps out of bed and roots around in the pocket of his coat for rizla and baccy and filters. When he turns back, he finds Enjolras shamelessly admiring his naked form. He feels self-conscious, because it is difficult have confidence about jutting ribs and patchy dark chest hair when one is faced with the body of a god incarnate, but takes the inspection in good humour all the same. Once he’s slid back into bed, rolled a perfect cigarette without spilling any tobacco across the sheets, and lit up, he comes back to Enjolras’s question.

“Well I’m not super experienced either, to be honest.” Grantaire pauses to take a drag, and exhale slowly. Even if the cigarette isn’t quite post-coital, it’s still fucking good. “I like, snogged people at school and stuff, and I’ve gotten with girls, but it didn’t really do anything for me. Then there was this guy in my maths class who came onto me at a party, and we ended up tossing each other off, but then afterwards he told everyone that I had perved on him and basically attacked him, so that didn’t go fabulously well.” He taps ash into an empty wineglass by his bed and turns back to Enjolras, whose hair is splayed out against the pillows like a pre-Raphaelite beauty. “Since I’ve got to uni I’ve slept with a couple of people, mostly guys I’ve met on tinder or at a club or whatever. I’ve never,” Grantaire laughs, nervous now, “I’ve never had a boyfriend or anything like that.”

There’s a pause in which Grantaire fixedly looks at the end of his cigarette and not at Enjolras. When it becomes apparent that his bedfellow isn’t going to break the silence, Grantaire casts around for something else to say that will dissolve the tension.

“It’s actually funny, that’s how I met Montparnasse, at a club in fresher’s week. We were at the same club, and we were both having a fag in the smoking area and he told me that he liked my jacket, and I told him that I liked his trainers.” Grantaire laughs, slipping back into the easy stream of a story he’s told about fifty times before, one that all his friends know. “We went inside and did about fifty shots and got completely smashed, and he persuaded me to go back to yours to keep the party going. We ended up snogging in his room, and then basically nearly banged – until I ran into the bathroom to throw up, and he passed out in his bed.” He turns to Enjolras, grinning. “We realised it was a terrible idea, and have been best mates ever since.”

Grantaire’s grin fades as he registers the expression on Enjolras’s face. It’s not the one of mild amusement that he is used to eliciting with his and Montparnasse’s origin story. Instead, it looks wan and shocked. “Enjolras?” Grantaire asks, nudging him with one bare sholder.

Enjolras unfreezes, and looks at Grantaire. “What the fuck.” he says quietly.

“What the fuck,” Enjolras says, clambering out of bed, naked, and striding over to the chair where his clothes are folded. Grantaire is horror struck, in bed, the stump of his cigarette burning his fingers.

“What’s… what’s going on?” Grantaire asks uncertainly, “Did I do something wrong?”

“Did I do something wrong?” Enjolras parrots sarcastically as he pulls his jeans on with something akin to violence. “Oh, I don’t know R – maybe this has something to do with the fact that you told me,” he pauses to pull his shirt on and starts buttoning it up askew, “you told me that there was nothing between you and Montparnasse, you promised me that you were just friends.” Enjolras picks up his wallet and phone from where they lie discarded on the desk, ramming them into his pockets, before whirling back to Grantaire. “Only now you tell me that you basically _fucked,”_ Enjolras spits, with such violence that it quells Grantaire’s growing protest in his throat.

“I can’t – I just – “ Enjolras stops, briefly looking stricken, before the anger reappears. “I don’t have time for this shit,” he snaps, and stalks out of the room without a backward glance, leaving his backpack behind him.

Back inside, Grantaire finally yelps and drops the smouldering cigarette butt, which goes on to burn a hole in his duvet.

Then he does the only thing he can think of doing. He goes home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so it's been AGES since I last updated, but the usual has been happening - life, uni, work, the summer. I am super happy I've got this finally written though - it was entirely composed on a very long train/coach journey up to and down from the highlands of scotland, so if moments are a bit patchy, it's probably because I was distracted by the beautiful scenery.
> 
> Some things I've learned from this chapter:
> 
> a) I can't go for a chapter without writing some fun texts from Montparnasse. I just love him too much.   
> b) writing sex scenes is technically very difficult and boring. It's hard to remember where anyone's dick is at any given moment. Writing a threesome must be a nightmare.
> 
> I know this is another twist, but lo! resolution and the end is in sight. There should be another two chapters and a very short epilogue left to go. What will happen to Ken? Will Feuilly remain a background character? Will Montparnasse bang Floreal? Does Grantaire like the new coat he's just bought? Will Enjolras ever actually go back to university? Find out next time! 
> 
> As always, kudos and reviews really are my bread and butter and keep me writing this even a year after I first started. And come and say hi on 
> 
> [tumblr](http://in-mine-idolatry.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. All comments are appreciated (dear god I have 10000 things to write and instead I ended up writing this) and kudos makes my day.
> 
> Come and find me on [tumblr](http://one-heart-one-soul.tumblr.com)


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